The Fire of Freedom

Satsang with Papaji

Volume 1

Edited by David Godman

Avadhuta Foundation
Colorado, USA
© Avadhuta Foundation 2006

All rights reserved

For information on rights contact the publisher

ISBN (print) (10 digit) 0-9638022-6-7

(13 digit) 978-0-9638022-6-2

Published by
Avadhuta Foundation
P.O. Box 296
Boulder, Colorado, 80306-0296
USA
www.avadhuta.com
 Contents

Introduction

Acknowledgements

1 - Who is thinking?

2 - Throw away the oars

3 - It’s something that is there all the time

4 - Desires will only be a problem when they leave an impression in the mind

5 - People who want to be busy don’t come to satsangs such as these

6 - Supreme devotion is not to give rise to a single thought.

7 - Who and where is this ‘I’ that wants to be free?

8 - Grace is always encouraging you to seek it

9 - In true love everything that is not yourself drops off

10 - I am the unique principle which makes the rose grow

11 - What comes and goes is a trap

12 - The knowledge ‘I am free’ is a fire that burns up any thoughts that

approach

13 - Whatever you experience, reject it

14 - Nobody is a seeker after liberation because nobody exists

15 - You have forgotten the purpose for which you incarnated

16 - Don’t load yourself up with the Ramayana of everyone else’s lives

17 - This question ‘Who am I?’ will give you an answer that you have never
heard before

18 - Self is closer to you than your own breath

19 - Mind is looking for awareness, but the aware mind does not look for
anything

20 - The Guru is none other than your own Self

21 - Dwelling on the enjoyment creates the desire to enjoy it again and again

22 - Don’t stir a single thought

23 - No teaching has so far touched the truth

24 - Give up all relationships

25 - Nobody believes me when I say, ‘You are already in this state, this
place’

26 - The primary mistake everyone makes is to seek happiness from

transactions that involve the senses

27 - No one has so far described it, and no one ever will

28 - Find the thoughtlessness that is there between thoughts

29 - This is a fathomless ocean, a fathomless ocean

30 - Your acts of concentration and meditation leave footprints

31 - Investigating and analysing your beliefs will not help you unless you
choose as the subject for your examination the ego that has all these beliefs

32 - This is the ultimate and final truth: there is no bondage, no liberation,

and no one even aspiring for liberation

33 - When you have lost the concept of duality, of two, oneness also goes

34 - This place where the ‘I’ vanishes is wisdom

35 - Give up the mind’s conviction that this is something that you ‘do’

36 - Drop the idea that you are on a route to a destination

37 - The power that you are absorbed in looks after you

38 - Mind is the transactions that take place between the subject and the
objects you retrieve from the past

39 - There have been instances in which a single vision changed and

transformed a person’s life

40 - This fire of knowledge will bring about understanding and knowledge

41 - You have to be serious, and you have to want freedom to the exclusion
of everything else

Glossary
 Introduction

Hariwansh Lal Poonja was born in 1913 near Lyalpur, a small Punjabi town
that was then in India but which later, in 1947, became part of the newly
created state of Pakistan. His father, who worked as a stationmaster for the
government railway network, was subjected to frequent transfers, and this
meant that the family was regularly relocated to different small towns.
In 1919 the British colonial government declared a special holiday to
commemorate victory in the First World War. The Poonja family took a trip
to Lahore, the biggest city in the region, and it was there that Hariwansh had
his first major spiritual awakening. As a mango and yoghurt drink was being
distributed to members of the family, Hariwansh ignored his because he had
become completely paralysed by a direct experience of the Self. He became
unable to drink, speak, or move in any way, and he remained absorbed in this
state for three days. In later years he would attempt to describe what
happened to him by saying that it was an experience of unalloyed beauty and
happiness, but at the time he had no context to evaluate what had happened to
him. Once this direct contact with the happiness of the Self had been
established, he spent much of the succeeding years trying to regain this
experience, or occasionally being spontaneously pulled back into it.
His mother, who was an ardent devotee of Krishna, convinced him that
devotion to Krishna would bring him back to this state of happiness.
Following her advice, Hariwansh focused his attention on a picture of
Krishna with such great intensity, Krishna began to appear before him in a
real physical form that was solid enough to be touched. Though no one else
in the family could see Krishna, they all saw Hariwansh playing with his
‘invisible’ new friend. Hariwansh became so addicted to the form of Krishna,
for many, many years his principal spiritual desire was to have Krishna
appear before him so that he could enjoy the bliss that came from being in his
presence.
When he was about thirteen years old, he fell in love with an image of the
Buddha that was in one of his school textbooks. It was a picture of a famous
statue, now in a Lahore museum, that depicted Buddha as an emaciated
ascetic. Something prompted Hariwansh to imitate the picture in the book,
and in the months that followed he deliberately starved himself in order to
look like it. He also made himself a Buddhist robe from one of his mother’s
saris, went out to beg his food, and gave speeches on the Buddha in the town
square. His teenage adventures as an imitation-Buddha ended when his
mother, who knew nothing about them, found that he had converted one of
her saris into a monk’s robe.
In the late 1920s part of the house in Lyalpur that Hariwansh’s family
lived in was rented by Sukdev, a militant freedom fighter who belonged to an
organisation that was trying to expel the British from India by force. Sukdev
and his friend Bhagat Singh were both eventually hanged by the British for
murdering, and attempting to murder, officials of the colonial government.
Hariwansh, who had no time for Gandhi’s path of non-violence, became a
member of their group because he was fully convinced that violence against
the British, who were occupying his country, was legitimate self-defence. He
had promised his family that he would not take part in part in any violent
activities himself, since that would have led to reprisals on other family
members, but he was an active public speaker who gave fiery speeches which
attempted to persuade people that the British should be thrown out of India
by force. After Sukdev and Bhagat Singh were hanged, Hariwansh did take
part in what was supposed to be a revenge mission – an attempt to blow up
the Viceroy’s train – but when this failed, the militant movement in the
Punjab fizzled out since almost all its members had by then either been jailed
or executed by the British.
Hariwansh was the oldest child in the family. When he was sixteen years
old, he went through the traditional arranged marriage and began work as a
salesman because his father could not afford to send him to college. His
work, which initially involved selling sports goods and surgical implements,
took him to Bombay, where he spent most of the 1930s. He earned enough to
support both his wife, his young children, and the other members of his
family who had stayed in Lyalpur.
In the early 1940s, after the outbreak of the Second World War,
Hariwansh applied to be an officer in the British wartime army. He felt that
the Punjabi freedom fighters of the 1920s and 30s had been doomed to fail
because they had lacked a proper military training and had had insufficient
access to arms and ammunition. In applying for a commission, he thought
that he would get a good military training which he could later put to good
use by fighting the British again. However, soon after he began his training,
he realised that this was an unrealistic goal.
During his years as a freedom fighter, and as a married man working in
Bombay, Hariwansh had never abandoned his love for Krishna, nor his desire
to have regular visions of him. When he eventually attained his commission,
he spent his nights dressing up in a sari, jewellery and makeup, and dancing
before an image of Krishna in an attempt to persuade him to manifest. He
was convinced that Krishna was more likely to appear to a woman.
Eventually, when military service proved uncongenial to him, he resigned
his commission in order to search for a Guru who would enable him to see
Krishna all the time. His search took him all over India and led him to some
of the most famous teachers of the time, but none of them was able to give a
positive reply to his standard introductory query: ‘Have you seen God, and if
so, can you show Him to me?’
Sometime after he returned home, a sadhu, a mendicant Hindu monk,
appeared at his door in Lyalpur, asking for alms. Hariwansh asked the
question again: ‘Can you show me God, and if not, do you know anyone who
can?’
The sadhu replied by saying, ‘Yes, I know a person who can show you
God. If you go and see that man, everything will be all right for you. His
name is Ramana Maharshi.’
Hariwansh found out from the sadhu that Ramana Maharshi lived in
Tiruvannamalai in southern India. Since he had used up all his money on his
earlier fruitless trips to find a Guru, he financed his journey to the south by
accepting a job from a company that was based in Madras, a city just a few
hours away by train from Tiruvannamalai.
When he arrived at Ramana Maharshi’s ashram, in 1944, he discovered,
much to his annoyance, that Ramana Maharshi was the same person who had
appeared to him as a sadhu in Lyalpur. Feeling that he had been cheated, he
was about to leave the ashram when he was told by a resident devotee that Sri
Ramana had not left Tiruvannamalai for almost fifty years. Intrigued, he
decided to stay.
 The first time he spoke to Sri Ramana, he asked him. ‘Are you the man
who came to my house in the Punjab?’ but Sri Ramana remained silent.
Then he asked him his standard question: ‘Have you seen God, and if you
have, can you enable me to see Him?’
Sri Ramana replied, ‘I cannot show you God because God is not an object
that can be seen. God is the subject. He is the seer. Don’t concern yourself
with objects that can be seen. Find out who the seer is.’ He also added, ‘You
alone are God’.
Though Hariwansh, who was still desperate to have visions of Krishna,
was not willing to accept this advice, he stayed long enough to have a major
experience in Sri Ramana’s presence. This is how he described it in Nothing
Ever Happened:

His words did not impress me. They seemed to me to be yet one
more excuse to add to the long list of those I had heard from
swamis all over the country. He had promised to show me God
[when he came to my house in the Punjab] yet now he was trying to
tell me that not only could he not show me God, no one else could
either. I would have dismissed him and his words without a second
thought had it not been for an experience I had immediately after
he had told me to find out who this ‘I’ was who wanted to see God.
At the conclusion of his words he looked at me, and as he gazed
into my eyes, my whole body began to tremble and shake. A thrill
of nervous energy shot through my body. My nerve endings felt as
if they were dancing, and my hair stood on end. Within me I
became aware of the spiritual Heart. This is not the physical heart.
It is, rather, the source and support of all that exists. Within the
Heart I saw or felt something like a closed bud. It was very shiny
and bluish. With the Maharshi looking at me and with myself in a
state of inner silence, I felt this bud open and bloom. I use the word
‘bud’ but this is not an exact description. It would be more correct
to say that something that felt bud-like opened and bloomed within
me in the Heart. And when I say ‘heart’ I don’t mean that the
flowering was located in a particular place in the body. This Heart,
this Heart of my Heart, was neither inside the body nor out of it. I
 can’t give a more exact description of what happened. All I can say
is that in the Maharshi’s presence, and under his gaze, the Heart
opened and bloomed. It was an extraordinary experience, one that I
had never had before. I had not come looking for any kind of
experience, so it totally surprised me when it happened.

Though he had had a good experience, Hariwansh decided that the

teachings of Sri Ramana, which seemed to disparage visions of God, were
not for him. He went to the other side of Arunachala, the holy mountain
where Sri Ramana had stayed all his adult life, and continued with his
Krishna meditations. Krishna appeared to him several times.
Before returning to Madras, he stopped off at Ramanasramam to see Sri
Ramana once more. Hariwansh told Sri Ramana that he had been having
visions of Krishna, but again Sri Ramana seemed to downplay the importance
of them.
After ascertaining that the visions came and left, Sri Ramana commented,
‘What is the use of a God who appears and disappears? If He is a real God,
He must be with you all the time.’
Hariwansh returned to Madras to start his new job. He intensified his
chanting of Krishna’s name, coordinating it with his breathing, until he
reached a point where he was repeating a Krishna mantra 50,000 times every
day. Then, somewhat surprisingly, the gods Ram, Sita and Lakshman
appeared before him in his house in Madras and stayed with him for most of
the night. After they left, he found himself unable to do any more chanting.
His mind simply refused to engage in the repetition of the divine name.
Perplexed by this new development in his practice, he decided to return to
Ramanasramam and explain his predicament to Sri Ramana.
Once he had outlined the details of what had happened, Sri Ramana
responded by telling him that his practice had been like a train that had
brought him to his destination. This is how Hariwansh described the meeting
in Nothing Ever Happened:

‘The train [from Madras to Tiruvannamalai,’ said Sri Ramana,]

‘brought you to your destination. You got off it because you didn’t
need it any more. It had brought you to the place you wanted to
 reach…
‘This is what has happened with your chanting. Your japa
[chanting of God’s name], your reading, your meditation, have
brought you to your spiritual destination. You don’t need them any
more. You yourself did not give up your practices: they left you of
their own accord because they had served their purpose. You have
arrived.’
Then he looked at me intently. I could feel that my whole body
and mind were being washed with waves of purity. They were
being purified by his silent gaze. I could feel him looking intently
into my Heart. Under that spellbinding gaze I felt every atom of my
body being purified. It was if a new body was being created for me.
A process of transformation was going on – the old body was
dying, atom by atom, and a new body was being created in its
place. Then, suddenly, I understood. I knew that this man who had
spoken to me was, in reality, what I already was, what I had always
been. There was a sudden impact of recognition as I became aware
of the Self. I use the word ‘recognition’ deliberately because as
soon as the experience was revealed to me, I knew, unerringly, that
this was the same state of peace and happiness that I had been
immersed in as a six-year-old boy in Lahore on the occasion when I
had refused to accept the mango drink. The silent gaze of the
Maharshi re-established me in that primal state. The desire to
search for an external God perished in the direct knowledge and
experience of the Self which the Maharshi revealed to me. … I
knew that my spiritual quest had ended….’

Hariwansh went back to Madras where he continued to work as a

contractor to the army, but he returned to Ramanasramam whenever he had
free time. Within a year or so he completely fell in love with Sri Ramana’s
form and found it difficult to be away from him for any length of time.
In the middle of 1947, after the border between the new states of Pakistan
and India had been demarcated, Hindus and Muslims on either side of the
border began a mass migration: Hindus in Pakistan to India, and Muslims in
India to Pakistan. Tensions ran high and many people were killed in the
ensuing altercations. Hariwansh, who was then staying in Ramanasramam,
was oblivious to all of this since he no longer read newspapers or kept up
with the news. However, one of Sri Ramana’s devotees who knew that
Hariwansh’s family was living on the Pakistan side of the border, informed
Sri Ramana about the situation. Sri Ramana advised Hariwansh to return
home to Lyalpur and bring all his family to the safety of India.
Hariwansh was disinclined to go, feeling that he no longer had any
connection with his family, or any responsibility for them, but Sri Ramana
persuaded him that it was still his duty to take care of them. Reluctantly,
Hariwansh left Ramanasramam and brought thirty-five members of his
extended family to India on the last train that left Pakistan. Once this train
had crossed the border, the railway lines connecting the two countries were
pulled up.
The Poonja family, who were little more than penniless refugees, then
settled in Lucknow, in what is now Uttar Pradesh. Hariwansh had to remain
with them there to work since the family had few resources to support itself.
Most of the members of the family who accompanied Hariwansh to India
were women who were unable to get jobs. Because of these family
obligations Hariwansh never managed to see Sri Ramana again.
In the early 1950s, after Sri Ramana had passed away, Hariwansh
returned to Tiruvannamalai with the intention of living there as a sadhu, but
destiny had other plans for him. After a brief stay in the vicinity of Sri
Ramanasramam, he took a trip to Bangalore where he was offered a job as a
manager in a mining company. He accepted the appointment, primarily to
have an income with which to support his family, and for the next fifteen
years, until his retirement in 1966, he worked at a number of mines in
Karnataka and Goa.
Once he had given up his job, he began to travel all over India, although
his favourite spot seemed to be Hardwar, on the banks of the River Ganga in
the foothills of the Himalayas. Although he had never announced himself as a
teacher, he had always attracted small numbers of devotees wherever he
went. These numbers slowly increased once he began to spend more time
among the spiritual seekers who congregated at the various centres that line
the banks of the Ganga in Rishikesh and Hardwar.
Between 1970 and 1990 he travelled extensively, both in India and
abroad, with most of his trips being at the behest of devotees who wanted to
see him. He resisted all attempts to found a centre or an ashram, preferring
instead to meet with small groups in their own communities. In the late
1980s, when physical disability prevented him from travelling alone, he
settled down in Lucknow, initially at his family’s house in the centre of the
city, and from 1991 onwards in a house in the Indira Nagar suburbs. It was
there that he spent the final years of his life, giving daily satsangs, and
occasionally travelling for brief visits to the Ganga. He passed away in
September 1997.
In this introduction I have been referring to him as ‘Hariwansh’ since it is
the first of his given names, but throughout his life he has had many different
identities. His mother, for example, called him ‘Ram’ at home, and for a brief
period in the 1970s he was known in the foothills of the Himalayas as
‘Scorpion Baba’ because of his ability to cure scorpion bites. Around 1990 he
acquired the title ‘Papaji’, meaning ‘respected father’, and this honorific was
used by virtually all the people who came to see him in the last few years of
his life.
Papaji always denied that he had any ‘teachings’. What he did have,
though, was an astonishing ability to give people who came to him a direct
glimpse of the Self. In the pages of this book one can see him repeatedly
cajoling and pressurising his visitors into looking within themselves in order
to become aware of the pristine experience of the Self that Papaji said was
always there, just waiting to be acknowledged and recognised. His method
was not to send people away to meditate and practise, with the long-term goal
being some great spiritual experience, it was instead to show people who
came to him that Self-awareness was possible here and now if one looked for
it in the place where the mind and the sense of individual identity arose.
The dialogues that comprise this book come from conversations that
Papaji had with visitors in his Indira Nagar home in 1991. At that time about
ten to fifteen people were coming to see him every day. The original audio
tapes are not dated, but I have spoken to some of the people who were
present and ascertained that the satsangs were in July and August of that year.
Although some of the voices on the tapes were familiar to me, I decided not
to identify them in the book. All the input from visitors is simply prefaced by
the word ‘Question:’.
Since Papaji was mostly talking to westerners, he did not use many of the
technical terms of Hindu scriptures and philosophy. However, a few do
appear from time to time, and if they are not translated in a bracketed
editorial interpolation, their meaning can be found in a glossary at the end of
the book.
Papaji always maintained that there was a power in the words of an
enlightened being, a power that facilitated a direct experience in the people
who listened to them. I believe that this power is still accessible to people
who never met Papaji in person, and who have only come across him in
videos or through the written word. I once asked Papaji if he accepted that
there were ‘mature’ devotees and ‘immature’ devotees, meaning people who
were ready for an experience of the Self and people who were not. He replied
by saying that he only recognised two categories: those who could listen
properly to his words, and those who could not. If you listen properly, with
an utterly silent and receptive mind, to what he has to say, and look in the
direction that his ‘teachings’ are pointing you towards, the power of the Self
that produced those words will reveal itself to you.

David Godman, Tiruvannamalai, 2007

 Acknowledgements

I should like to thank Aruna for transcribing all the tapes, for doing the
pagemaking, and for supervising the printing work. I should also like to thank
the Avadhuta Foundation for providing the funding and the general support
that made the transcription work possible, and for waiting patiently while this
long-overdue project was finally brought to fruition. Thanks also to the
following people who read the manuscripts, pointed out errors and made
useful suggestions: Chandra, Dev, Divya, Gita, Leela, Nadhia, Nola, Sarah,
Venkatasubramanian, and one or two others who preferred to remain
anonymous.
 1

Who is thinking?

Question: I’m not clear how to make the best use of you as my teacher. I
want to make the best use of my time here, but I’m not clear how I should use
my time. What should I be doing that I am not doing at home?

Papaji: Take care of the purpose for which you have come. First, clarify your
purpose. A relationship is not really necessary. That we can look after later.
Purpose is the foremost, the most important thing.
When you are thirsty, you go to the river. Your purpose is to quench your
thirst. It is not to ask the river what kind of relationship you have with it. You
don’t need a relationship; you only need a purpose.
You came here the day before yesterday and your purpose is to find out
who you are. Find this out. Know who you are. If you first know who you
are, then you will automatically know who I am. So, your first priority is the
question ‘Who am I?’ Once you have discovered that, you will know the real
nature of all the other things and people that you see. First start with this
question ‘Who am I?’ We started on this question the day before yesterday.
You need to recognise yourself. Now, what was that question I asked you to
ask?

Question: Who?

Papaji: Yes, what was the full question?

Question: Who is thinking?

Papaji: Yes, this was the question I gave you. I told you to find the answer to
this question. I asked you to return home to the Self through asking this
question, and then to come back and tell me what you saw there.
Question: What do I see there?

Papaji: Yes, what do you see there? [There was a pause while Papaji wrote
‘who’ on a piece of paper and showed it to the questioner.] What do you see
here?

Question: I see a word on a piece of paper.

Papaji: This simple word is your question.

Question: What do I see in here?

Papaji: Anywhere. Wherever the ‘who’ is. Your question is, ‘Who is
thinking?’

Question: I can see the question.

Papaji: Can you see where the question comes from? Focus on this question
and look to see where it arises from. Return back to the ‘who’. What do you
see there?

Question: I see arising. I see things arising, one from another.

Papaji: Something arose that is the predicate. Now, what is the subject? Who
is thinking? Return from this predicate of thinking and focus on the ‘who’.
This is the finish. Now you are at the root, aren’t you? Find out who this
‘who’ is. What is its shape? What is the shape of this ‘who’? What is its
form? How is it? What does it look like?

[Long pause]

What is happening?

Question: The question just arises out of nothing, out of emptiness, and
disappears back into emptiness.

Papaji: That’s right. You say this question disappeared into the emptiness.
The question was, ‘Who is thinking?’ For thinking you need a mind, don’t
you? Now, the process of thinking has been arrested. It happened when you
put the question, ‘Who is thinking?’ Now the process has been arrested. Then
you said, very correctly, that the question disappears. That’s what you said.
‘There’s emptiness.’ What else do you say?

Question: It’s emptiness; just space.

Papaji: OK, it’s emptiness; it’s space. Emptiness is there; space is there. This
is your inherent nature. You can call it presence or space or anything else. It
is obstructed by desire and by thinking. It is always obstructed by desire.
Emptiness is just the lack, the absence of thoughts and desires. When you
have a burden on your shoulder, you are restless. Let us say that you are
holding onto two hundred pounds and that you want to get rid of this trouble,
this burden. When you drop it, you have not gained anything. You have not
attained some new state that was never there before. You have simply thrown
something away that was troubling you and returned to your inherent nature,
the inherent state that was there before you loaded yourself up with this
weight.
This thinking process, this burden, is a desire that we always carry with
us. I am showing you how to drop this unwanted burden. When you ask the
question, ‘Who is thinking?’ you arrest the process of thinking and return
back to your true nature, your inherent nature, your spontaneous nature, the
pure source that is empty. This is your own nature, and this is what you are
always. The mind does not enter there. Time does not enter. Death does not
enter. Fear does not enter. This is your inherent, eternal nature. If you stay
there, there will be no fear. If you step out of it, you step into samsara,
manifestation, and there you are in trouble all the time.

Question: I think I have a desire to make a much bigger deal of it.

Papaji: What?

Question: I think I had expectations that it would be some big, great

experience, but actually the experience of it is very ordinary. It just feels very
clear, very ordinary, and very empty.
Papaji: Yes, from emptiness everything arises. From emptiness all this
cosmos has arisen, all this manifestation comprising millions of planets and
solar systems. All of these millions of planets hanging in space arose from
just one thought that arose from this particle of emptiness. This can happen
without affecting the emptiness at all.

Question: Should I try to stay in the emptiness? Thoughts arise in the

emptiness. Some of them are attractive; some make me afraid; and some of
them are repugnant. I find myself latching onto thoughts and identifying with
them. I become those thoughts. I lose sight of the emptiness and the presence
until I can remind myself again.

Papaji: If you remind yourself at that time, all is over, all is gone. The best
position to take is that of not forgetting. Just play your role, but don’t forget
that it is all just a drama on the stage.
Imagine a drama company is putting on a play. The person who has to
play the servant of the king falls sick at the last moment and cannot come. No
other actors are available, so the proprietor of the company steps in to play
the role. In the play the king, who is one of the employees of the proprietor,
orders the servant around: ‘Fetch my shoes. I want to go for a walk.’ The
proprietor meekly obeys and carries out the orders, but does he ever forget
that he is the owner of the company? He is happy to act the role of the servant
because all the time that this role is being portrayed he knows that he is really
the proprietor.
If you live like this, knowing that you are the Self, you can act anywhere.
If you know this, all your activities will be very beautiful, and you will never
suffer. Once you have had a glimpse, a knowledge of this emptiness, you will
be happy all the time because you will know that all manifestation, all
samsara, is your own projection.
Where does all this manifestation rise from? When you are asleep, there
is nothing there, is there?

Question: There’s another kind of dreaming then.

Papaji: I am not speaking of dreaming. We can talk about that state later. For
now, I’m talking about slumber, deep sleep.
 A few years ago I met a team in Rishikesh. Twenty-five people had come
from all over the world: psychologists, physiologists, even parapsychologists.
They had a very original proposition that they were trying to test: that there
are only two states, waking and dreaming. They said that man is either awake
or dreaming and that there was really no such state as sleep.
One of them told me, ‘That is what we are discovering in the West. When
we put an EEG on a sleeping person’s brain we find that dreaming is going
on all the time, even during what appears to be deep sleep.’
In India we say that there are five states: waking, dreaming, sleeping,
turiya, and turiyatita.

Question: What is that last one?

Papaji: Turiyatita. Waking, dreaming and sleeping are states you understand.
After this there is turiya, the fourth state. This is the state in which the
previous three appear and disappear. Beyond that is turiyatita, which means
‘beyond the fourth’.
These scientists were going from ashram to ashram, looking for swamis
to test with their equipment. Some of the scientists were part of an astronaut-
training programme. Apparently, astronauts were not sleeping well in space,
so research was going on, looking for ways to improve their sleeping. There
was a theory that some kind of meditation or yoga might improve their
sleeping patterns.
These scientists were looking for swamis to test. They wanted to put
electrodes on their heads while they were meditating to see what happened to
the brain waves during meditation. They tried many people and eventually
ended up with a man called Swami Rama. When they arrived he was
gardening in his ashram. I was not there at the time, so I got this story
second-hand.
They approached him very respectfully and explained their purpose. Then
they asked him if he would sit or lie down and meditate while they checked
out his brain waves.
He replied, ‘You can attach your wires while I am watering my garden. I
don’t need to sit down to meditate.’
The scientists put wires on his head and discovered that, as the swami had
said, his mind was not working while he was engaged in his daily gardening
chores. They were so impressed, they took him off for further tests.
If you are knowingly established in the substratum, any amount of
activities can go on, and you won’t need the mind to do them. The Self will
take care of all these things and you will remain in peace at all times.
Let us go back to the three states – waking, dreaming and sleeping – and
the underlying fourth state of emptiness. The three states are projected onto
that substratum, that background in which sleeping comes and goes,
dreaming comes and goes, and waking comes and goes. There is some
substratum, some basic foundation on which they all revolve. That
foundation, that presence, that space is always there, but while you are
preoccupied with outside things, you forget it.
Now, there are three classes of people. In the first category there are those
who never ever forget. Under all circumstances they know that everything is
taking place in this substratum. These people are the jivanmuktas, which
means that they are fully liberated while they are still alive in their bodies.
The second category get themselves into trouble because sometimes they
remember and sometimes they forget. Awareness of emptiness may be there
for a while, but then the memory of a friend who has died may rise up and
suddenly they are in grief. They have lost the awareness of that emptiness by
attaching themselves to a thought. This kind of emptiness is not abiding; it
depends on the whims of mental activities. The people in the third category
are suffering all the time. They never have even a glimpse of that original
space, that emptiness, and so they suffer endlessly. For them, samsara never
ends or even stops briefly.
If you are a member of the very exclusive number one club, you know
that whatever manifests is an appearance in your own Self. When you wake
up, manifestation arises, but you know that it is all a projection. When you
sleep, no manifestation is present, but you, your Self, will still remain.
Something will still be there while you sleep, and that something is your own
Self.

Question: I am not aware of that presence while I am asleep.

Papaji: Yes, it is because ‘you’ are not present. It is the ‘you’ that you live
through that decides these matters. For ‘you’ presence is only felt when there
is some obstruction to the awareness of the presence.

Question: ‘When there’s obstruction, I can feel presence, but when there
isn’t, I can’t.’ This sounds very paradoxical.

Papaji: Your sense of being a person is the obstruction. Everything, all your
experiences, or the lack of them, are mediated through this idea of
individuality. This obstruction rises from the presence and you either feel the
presence through it, or you are aware of its absence. The presence is there all
the time, but you don’t feel it in your deep-sleep state because this mediator,
this ‘I’, is not there. You don’t know how to be aware of anything when this
‘I’ is absent, so you declare, ‘Presence is not there when I sleep’.
You use this obstruction to validate all your experiences but it has no
inherent validity of its own. Shanti, peace, was there before the obstruction
arose, and when the obstruction subsides, shanti still prevails. Your inherent
nature is this shanti. It is there both when the experiencer is there and when
the experiencer is absent.

Question: Yes, it’s obvious. A fish swims in water all its life, but it doesn’t
know anything about water. If you want to teach it about water, you take it
out of the water, and immediately it understands what water is and how
important it is.
What you are saying is that if there is nothing to interfere with the
presence, there’s nothing to contrast the presence to. And that means there is
no means to know the presence.

Papaji: Here we speak of the fish that is still in the river and which cries, ‘I
am thirsty!’ It is ignorance of the underlying substratum that creates the idea
of suffering. That space, that emptiness, is your inherent nature. It is always
there.

Question: [begins to laugh uncontrollably]

Papaji: He’s a doctor of... [Papaji also starts to laugh]

Question: What a relief! [Everyone in the room laughs] I can’t believe it’s so
simple. Hmm. Thank you. Thank you very much. I seem to remember now.

Question: [new questioner, addressing the laughing man] Did you forget? I
watch myself and I ask myself questions such as ‘Who is getting upset?’ but I
forget all the time.

Papaji: When you say, ‘I have forgotten’, you are not forgetting, you are
suddenly remembering. Every time the thought ‘I have forgotten’ arises, that
is remembrance.

Question: But there is also a point when you are not even aware that you
have forgotten. You just get angry, for example, with no thought of
forgetfulness or remembrance.

Papaji: You have a relationship with this entity that is forgetting or

remembering. There must be a person who is forgetting. There is a person
who is the same whether she has forgotten or remembered. So, the person
remains the same throughout the process of remembering and forgetting. Find
out the ‘I’ who has the forgetfulness and you will discover the ‘I’ that never
forgets. That real ‘I’ is consciousness itself. It will not forget anything. It is
presence itself. In that presence you don’t forget anything. If light is
everywhere, nothing can be hidden because there is no area of darkness
where things are not clear. When you return to consciousness, everything will
be very clear. Nothing will be forgotten or hidden.
There is the sleep state in which you have dreams, and there is the waking
state. These are known to you. But there is something beyond them, and that
is consciousness. This is your true nature. You don’t have to acquire it, gain
it, attain it, achieve it, or aspire for it. Since you have never lost it, you don’t
have to run after it to get it back. It is here now, and it will always be here. It
can’t be lost. If it is not here now, what is the use of trying to get it?
Whatever you newly acquire you will one day lose.
So look for that which is never lost, which is permanent, abiding, natural
and always there, here and now. Look into ‘now’. Look into presence. Look
into space. Look into your own emptiness. Everything is there in this one
particle of emptiness. The whole cosmos is there, the whole cosmos. It
emerges from there. Return there and see the source of all these phenomena.
Then, enjoy life.
 2

Throw away the oars

Question: Sometimes the awareness is there, but along with it there is still
duality. Sometimes I am so intoxicated by the shanti [peace]. I don’t care;
nothing seems to matter. At other times, though, it makes me sad that there is
still duality.

Papaji: For duality to be there, there must be a substratum of non-duality.

For duality to be recognised as duality, there must be a non-duality that is
aware of the duality.

Question: It perceives the subject.

Papaji: There should be a basis of non-duality to perceive the duality. There

is no question of them being different since one is the basis and substratum of
the other. What is the difference? When you see duality, what do you see?

Question: Others. Otherness.

Papaji: Yes, but where does this ‘otherness’ come from? When you sleep,
you are alone. When you go to sleep, there are not two people asleep. Only
oneness will sleep. When there is something other than you, you can’t sleep,
you can’t be asleep. You have to reject all ‘otherness’ if you want to go to
sleep. You have to reject your body, your mind and your intellect in order to
go to sleep. Only oneness is there when you sleep.
Now, you are alone in sleep. In that sleep you create a dreamer and
manifestation comes back. You see mountains, rivers and forests. Duality is
there again. Then sleep comes back and in that state there are no more
manifestations and dualities. Return back to this state. Who has created this
duality? Who? From where? From where did this manifestation come? Who
created it?
Question: There is only one source for everything.

Papaji: ‘One source.’ If you know there can only be one source for
everything, a place from where so many things come, stay and go, if you
really know this secret, how can you be troubled with dualities,
manifestations and illusions? How can you be troubled by them? Let
manifestation rise, stay or dissolve. This is all your drama, all your cosmic
play. If you know this, you will enjoy it all.

[Long pause]

You do not need to meditate; you just need to remove all your doubts.
Once the doubts have been cleared, you need not do anything. If a lake is full
of weeds, you can’t see the water. You can’t see your reflection in the water,
and you can’t see the bottom of the lake. But remove all the weeds, and all
will be clear.
First, it’s absolutely essential that you understand things properly. Once
you do, meditation may or may not follow. Just understand things. Be very,
very clear about important things, such as who you are. If you haven’t got
this understanding, meditation is just going to be another trick of the mind; it
will be an act of postponement.
Don’t be deceived. Be very clear about things. That’s all that is needed.
With a truly quiet mind you can do anything.

Question: Is searching for the ‘I’ compatible with being quiet and thought-
free? Or are they two different things?

Papaji: The place of silence is the place where the ‘I’ rises from. If you want
to find out the source of this ‘I’ and be quiet there, first fix its geographical
location. Once you know where something is, you can then decide on the best
way of getting there. Before you make a decision about whether you should
travel somewhere by air, by sea or by road, you have to have a destination,
and you have to know where it is. How far away is the destination? What is
the starting point? Once you have satisfactorily answered these two
questions, it will be easy to decide the best way of making the journey.
Now, this ‘I’, where is it? Start with the body itself. Someone inside a
body is saying ‘I’. All your life you are using this word ‘I’. Where is this ‘I’?
Where is it? First of all take note of the fact that it is there in all the three
states – ‘I am awake, I dreamed, I slept’. It persists in all these three states,
but where does it actually reside? What is its residence? And the person who
wants to discover its residence, who is this person? How far away is this
person? If the destination, the object of the search, is the ‘I’, how far away
from it is he? These things have to be discovered, clarified.
The seeker, through his search, is seeking what? What is doing the
seeking? This too has to be ascertained. There is the seeker, there is the
search and there is the sought. First, find out the seeker who wants to do the
seeking. This is very important.

Question: [the man from New Zealand who burst into prolonged laughter in
the previous section] It’s as if presence is seeking recognition.

Papaji: [laughing] Very good. Yes, you are coming very close. You are
coming very close. You are coming close because you understand that it is
just a recognition.

Question: It all seems to arise out of vast, empty space, and then disappear
back into it.

Papaji: Seeking is there because recognition is not yet established. The

seeker is slowly moving through the search for recognition. It is like looking
in a mirror to recognise yourself. You find the mirror, see your reflection in
it, and recognise yourself. Once you have recognised yourself, you can throw
away the mirror, the search, and the idea that there is something to be sought.
In recognition there is no ‘who’ who recognises, but no one knows this.
From time immemorial everyone has been sitting endlessly in meditation.
Nobody tells the truth about this process of recognition, about the necessity
of it. Prayers are going on in temples and meditations are going on in
monasteries, but nobody knows the truth. Nobody dares even to speak it.
Everyone is walking on the beaten track, like a flock of sheep. You have to
get off the beaten track. You have to take your own track, perhaps no track at
all.
Question: It’s so vast!

Papaji: In emptiness there are no tracks. There aren’t any. Wherever you go,
emptiness follows you. And emptiness leads you. Emptiness is on either side
of you, above you and below you. Where can you go where you can leave
behind the emptiness? Where else can you go? In that emptiness death cannot
approach. Gods cannot approach there.

Question: It is. It just is.

Papaji: [laughing] It just is. This Kiwi is very strong [laughter]. It looks
slow, but it is very fast. It has been very nice meeting with you. You
originally asked about what relationship you had with me. This is the
relationship.

Question: I have got my question answered.

Papaji: The answer! This is the only relationship. There is no other

relationship that is permanent, not even with the gods. Your parents cannot
provide you with this permanent relationship, nor can your priests. This is the
only abiding relationship that you must have. This is the one you cannot
shun. This relationship will not abandon you, and you will not be divorced
from it at any time. All other relationships revolve around self-interest. Every
other relationship is motivated by some interest, some desire. This
relationship is sweet, very loving, and of excellent beauty. You will not find
anything about this relationship in your dictionary. It is not there. I can tell
you this because I am very sure about it. This relationship is not known
anywhere. All the others are very ugly relationships, very ugly, very dirty
relationships.

Question: I start out wanting to use you and finish up by meeting you.

Papaji: Hereafter, throw away your oars. Throw your oars into the river and
you will have a very safe passage. You will sail very safely.

Question: I am very fond of the oars.

Papaji: The breeze is there. The breeze will take care of you. Using the oars
is a very tiring job. Let the breeze take care of you.

Question: Fear arises when the thought of throwing away the oars appears.

Papaji: This is the right time. When I say, ‘Throw away the oars’, this is the
right time to do it.
 3

It’s something that is there all the time

Papaji: [speaking to a woman who did not seem to be fully aware of what
was going on around her because of some internal experience she was
immersed in] We were walking together in the garden. Some music was
playing. I looked at you and spoke to you, but you didn’t hear what I said.
You were the only person there who didn’t hear me. You weren’t taking part
in what was going on because you were attending to something else,
something inside you that was far more interesting and attractive. It’s true,
isn’t it? Life could go on like this all the time. You could move through it
without leaving any footprints.

Question: Footprints?

Papaji: Your mind was not engaging with anything external. You were not
taking any serious part in it because you were absorbed. This is how it should
happen. Eventually, you will take part, but at the same tine you will not be
taking part. This is the technique to adopt. It will come slowly.

Question: This is how I have been feeling for most of this weekend.

Papaji: You are speaking too softly. Come and sit here. I don’t want to ask
you to repeat everything you say.

Question: [after moving closer] I was going to say that during this weekend I
have had the feeling that there is one person who is asking ‘Who is Susie?’
and another one who is just observing the process. Is this what you are
talking about?

Papaji: Yes, this is what I am describing. You are in the transit lounge,
watching what is going on. Keep on watching. Everyone is agitated in the
transit lounge. You know that. There are announcements that people are
trying to catch; much activity is going on; no one is just sitting quietly. See
what is going on. Observe it, comment on it if you like, but at the same time
get clarity in yourself. Now is the time to do this. You have not read about
this anywhere. Why? Because it is not written anywhere. It is not something
that you can read in books or pick up from other people.
You are seeking clarity, a clarification of the confusion you have become
aware of within yourself. It will come in a few more days, and then you can
pack up and go. What you are speaking of is a good thing. Something is
happening to you. Some dictation is being given to you, and you are
following its commands. You are becoming an instrument, an instrument that
is being activated by a power that is not your own ego. It will be a very happy
life, a very beautiful life. There will be no responsibilities in it. You will be
very happy.

Question: I don’t think the ego is absent. Is it? It feels like it is still here.

Papaji: In this state it becomes like a burnt rope. You look at it and its shape
appears to be that of a rope, but it cannot be used for anything. If you try to
pick it up and tie something with it, it disintegrates in your fingers. It seems
to be there, but it can no longer be used.

Question: I see. I’ll try to tie something with it and see if it is still working.

Papaji: Don’t think at all. Just stay as you are. Meditation is going on. It will
do its work. Meditation is going on continuously. Do you see? Are you
finding it?

Question: Yes, I find that…

Papaji: This is meditation.

Question: It’s interesting. It feels like … some kind of perception … it’s

interesting … some special kind of perception is happening.

Papaji: Yes, that’s what I am saying. It’s meditation, but it has become
effortless. Some concentration is there, but it is not attaching itself to any
object, neither an object on the inside nor anything outside. You are not
clinging to any object. Have you noticed?

Question: No. It just feels like meditation. I don’t really know what’s going
on.

Papaji: [laughing] Yes, this is what real meditation is like. Usually, there is
some attachment to sense objects, a clinging to them, but in this meditation
there is nothing to cling to. There is no intention there. That’s the important
point. When there is no intention, there will be constant meditation. You must
be feeling some difference yourself. The mind is quiet. In this state it will be
quiet even if you don’t meditate. You are somehow different. Haven’t you
noticed it?

Question: Yes. … I feel … I am knowledge.

Papaji: That’s what I am saying. This is something that was known to you. It
was a knowledge you had before. How to meditate, how to sit. The
knowledge is there. It is coming back to you.

Question: I didn’t do anything. I didn’t sit and I didn’t meditate.

Papaji: This is natural meditation. You don’t ‘do’ it. It’s something that is
there all the time. It’s called ‘sahaja’, which means ‘natural’. This is sahaja
meditation.

Question: Sahaja?

Papaji: Sahaja meditation. This is the natural state. It will become your
sister.

Question: This is confusing me, Papaji. You are talking about this, giving a
lot of importance to this change. To me it doesn’t feel like anything special.

Papaji: This is good. It may not feel special, but it is a special thing to say.
[laughter] You didn’t say this before, before you came here. At the moment,
it is not ‘special’ to you, but if you knew this before, if this ‘knowledge’, as
you call it, was there before, then why did you come here?
Question: I don’t know.

Papaji: Now you are saying ‘I don’t know’. Before you knew all sorts of
things. You have nothing to gain any more. Nothing more to get, nothing
more to achieve. This is a return to your natural state, a very natural state.
Most people can’t do this. They don’t want to stay as they are. They want to
become something else, something they are not, and that makes them
disturbed. You are making good statements. ‘No change.’ This is very good.

[Very long pause]

I was staying in Rishikesh a few years ago when I was visited by a

woman who came from Baroda. Have you heard of Baroda? Her husband
was a petrochemical engineer. She came to Rishikesh with about fifty other
people to attend a yoga course at Sivananda Ashram. They had a very busy
programme. They were living in a house that was called ‘Baroda House’.
Baroda was once an independent state and this building had been constructed
by a member of the royal family so that people who came to Rishikesh from
Baroda would have somewhere to stay. It was a very big building.
They had a very busy programme. At 5 a.m. they all had to get up and
attend some yoga class. There were talks, lectures and yoga classes for most
of the day, but they had some free time after 1 p.m. I was staying in a cottage
that belonged to a temple which was up the hill from Rishikesh. This woman
came to visit me there during this short period of free time.
She asked the priest of the temple if there was any swami in residence,
and he told her, ‘There is no one in orange robes you can speak to, but there
is a man who teaches here who wears western clothes. He is a householder.
Some foreign people are staying with him in his cottage. You can go and
speak to him there.’
She wanted the priest to introduce her, but he said, ‘No introduction is
necessary. Just go there and join the group. No one will mind.’
There was something about her face that reminds me of you. She would
eat and do things, but her attention was withdrawn into herself. She wasn’t
really noticing much of what was going on around her. Something was
pulling her in, and she wasn’t absorbing much from the outside world.
 There were seven or eight foreigners with me at the time and we were
speaking in English. A few Indians were also there. This woman arrived at
my satsang with several other women who were also on the Sivananda
Ashram course. She seemed to me to be the leader of the group.
After some preliminary conversation about yoga, a subject she seemed to
be quite knowledgeable on, she asked me, ‘Swami, how does one control the
mind?’
This is a standard question that disciples have been asking gurus for
thousands of years. In all that period it has never been satisfactorily
answered.
Arjuna, in the Gita, had the same problem. ‘It’s just like air,’ he said.
‘How can it be controlled?’
Everyone on the spiritual path is obsessed with this particular question,
but on this occasion I didn’t give any reply. Instead, I asked a girl from
France who was staying with me to make some tea for our new guests. The
question was repeated, and again I made no reply. After the tea had been
drunk she asked the question for the third time, and for the third time I gave
no reply. Time was running out for them because they had to return to
Sivananda Ashram to carry on with their course. They had been there three
days, doing this course, and they had still to complete the course before they
could return home.
Just before she left she asked the question one more time, and once more
I kept quiet.
The following morning, at a very early hour, she came to see me alone,
carrying fruit and flowers.
She gave them to me, saying, ‘I have found the answer. Even though you
never answered my question while I was here, I wanted to come again and
repeat it because it was really bothering me. In the middle of the night, at
about 1.30 a.m., someone knocked on my door. I assumed it was someone
from my group, but when I opened the door it was you.’
I hadn’t been anywhere that night. I had been asleep in bed when this
story apparently took place.
‘You came to my door,’ she continued, ‘and somehow you gave me the
answer. Now I am satisfied. We came here for a month of yoga training as a
group. We booked a whole coach on a train and we are all travelling together.
I don’t want to go back on the coach with everyone else. I want to stay here
with you.’
I tried to discourage her: ‘You can continue staying where you are. You
can finish your course and then go home to Baroda with everyone else.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I want to stay here with you.’
When I saw that she was determined to stay with me, I asked her to go
and see the manager of this ashram I was in since I couldn’t let anyone else
stay there without getting his permission first. When the manager gave the
necessary permission, she moved into a nearby room. Afterwards, she came
to my room, sat down and refused to move or even eat. She was absorbed in
some inward state and didn’t want to bother with the business of ordinary
life. She could hear what I was saying, but she didn’t feel inclined to stir
herself and do anything that I suggested. She did not even speak to me when I
asked her to do things.
Her name was Suman. ‘Suman,’ I would say, ‘You are not eating. You
have to eat. I will help you.’
I put food in her hand but she refused to lift the hand up to her mouth. I
had to lift her arm as well and place her hand next to her mouth. She never
complained about any of this, but she wouldn’t do any of the work herself.
I made her open her mouth to put the food in, and then I told her, ‘That’s
all I can do for you. You have to do the munching and swallowing yourself. I
can’t do that for you.’
She gave me a lot of trouble for two days. She sat there for this whole
period, day and night, just staring vacantly and not responding to any of the
suggestions that I gave her. I couldn’t make her go back to her room. She just
sat on my floor and refused to move. There were seven or eight of us staying
there at the time. We had four rooms between us. I had a room to myself and
the others shared the other three rooms. The manager knew me and usually
gave me these rooms every year for three months. It was a good place – up in
the mountains, away from the town of Rishikesh.
I wanted to send this woman home to her family, but I knew that in her
current state I would have to make all the arrangements myself. I took her in
a taxi to Hardwar, purchased a first class ticket to Baroda, bought some
sweets to give to her children, and gave her a bottle of Ganga water to take
back for anyone who wanted some. I tried to make her eat at the station, but
she wasn’t interested.
She tried to give me all her money, saying, ‘I don’t need this any more. I
will keep five rupees for the journey. I can get a taxi at the other end and my
family can pay for it when I arrive home. Now, everything I have belongs to
you. I want you to take it all.’
I refused to take it. Since I could see that she was in no fit condition to
look after herself, I spoke to the man who was sharing the first class carriage
with her. I had found out her family’s phone number, so I gave it to the man
in the carriage.
‘When the train reaches Baroda,’ I said, ‘please call this number and
make sure that someone comes to collect her. Otherwise she will just wander
around and get lost.’
When I explained to the man in the carriage that Suman was having
problems looking after herself, he promised to take care of her until her
family could take delivery of her in Baroda. Since the train stopped for
twenty minutes at Baroda, there would be enough time to make all the
arrangements.
‘Will she eat?’ he asked, and I replied, ‘If you put some food in her hand
and tell her to put it in her mouth, chew it and swallow, she will probably do
it. But don’t worry if she doesn’t eat. She can easily last until her family
comes. There is nothing physically wrong with her. She is just very absent-
minded at the moment. Her attention is elsewhere.’
Everything went according to plan and she arrived safely at her house.
Her husband sent me a telegram, thanking me for all the trouble I had taken
to get her home. He even invited me to come and stay with them. Suman had
apparently told him that if I didn’t come to them, she would leave and look
for me.
This was a very rare case. Someone who got it instantly from the teacher.
She came with a burning question – ‘How to control the mind?’ – and
without my saying anything she experienced the state in which mind no
longer needs to be controlled. It is the state of no-abiding, the state in which
the mind does not abide anywhere. There have been two or three cases like
this; they are not common.
I accepted the husband’s invitation and went and spent fifteen days with
them. Then I took her to Bombay where I visited some other devotees.
These things do sometimes happen very quickly. In some people it
doesn’t happen at all.
There is a never-ending cycle of birth and death. What is birth and what is
death? They are desire. This never-ending cycle is fuelled by desire, the
desire to enjoy sense objects in a body. When desire ceases, this cycle also
ceases. This apparently endless cycle of birth and death ends with the
cessation of desire. It is not only birth and death that end. When desire
ceases, the universe itself ceases. It is as if it never existed. That’s how it is.

Question: [new questioner] I have a question about the mind. It seemed to

me this morning that the mind is not just something that one needs to
disengage from. It seems that it can take me to wherever I need to go.

Papaji: Mind can be the enemy and mind can also be the friend. It is the
mind that binds and it is the mind that liberates. When the mind is attached to
objects, which are transitory and impermanent, this is the mind that binds.
This is the mind that is an enemy. But a mind that does not abide anywhere,
on any object, is a mind that is your friend. This is the mind that liberates. It
all depends on you, on what kind of company you keep in your mind. Mind
can destroy you, but mind can also be of great help. There is a tremendous
power in the mind, a power that you can make use of. When the mind is at
rest, it gives us peace. But when it is restless, it creates all this samsara, this
suffering, this hell. A peaceful mind brings heaven down to earth. It brings
peace everywhere. In that state, wherever you walk, that place will be heaven.
This is the mind.

Question: It seems to me that there is a choice. The mind can decide whether
to create a heaven or a hell. At any given moment that choice is there.

Papaji: Yes, that is your own choice. You have to decide these things for
yourself. You can decide, ‘I am bound; I have to suffer,’ and this creates
samsara. Alternatively, you can say, ‘I want peace. I want freedom. I want
happiness. I want love.’ When you move in this direction, what a beautiful
choice you have made! Make it! ‘I want freedom! I want to be free! I want
happiness! I want love!’ Do it now, today, or at least some time during your
span of life. Have a good mind, a friendly mind.

Question: [new questioner] When mind is not abiding, does mind still exist?

Papaji: No. When a desire arises in the mind, there arises with it an intention
to enjoy sense objects. When this happens you are involved in their
enjoyment. The mind works through the senses; the senses move out to
objects that they can enjoy. All these things manifest once desire and
intention arise. Your intention makes the mind the agent for the various
enjoyments it indulges in. In the middle of all this is the ego, the enjoyer of
all the objects that are being pursued and enjoyed. If the ego remains still,
mind itself does not arise. It does not cause any trouble. It will not abide
anywhere, and with no place to abide, it will return to its source, to the place
of no-mind. In that place there will be no mind.
You can function without this mind. You can function very well without
it. Earlier today this girl was talking about how this can work. She was
talking about the state in which no mind does the work. What did you say?
Can you repeat it again?

Question: [the woman who reminded Papaji of Suman] I was saying that
there is an actor and the observer.

Papaji: Yes, this is how it is. Can you explain it a little more?

Question: It feels as if there is an actor and an observer in the same person.

And the body just seems to act by itself.

Papaji: The body is acting and the observer is different from it. The body is
receiving direct instructions, but not through the ego. The ‘I am the doer’ idea
is not there. When the doer is not there, one is not responsible for one’s
actions. No karma is formed in this state. This is no mind. You can work very
well without this mind.

Question: [new questioner] Why does mind arise again afterwards?

Papaji: If you are careful and vigilant in this state, it is not mind that rises
again. Something else is going to rise in its place. What’s that ‘other’? Now,
you only know about the mind. You don’t know about what is beyond it.
When mind has gone, when mind is finished, you no longer have desires, and
when you don’t have desires, you return to the source. In that source
something else will animate you, something that you have not been aware of
before. You can call it prajna, wisdom. It will look after you, and it will do a
very good job. When prajna runs your life, you will just be its instrument.
This was explained well in the Gita. Arjuna surrendered his mind at the feet
of his Master, and then allowed prajna to dictate his actions. The command
to fight started with the direct command of Krishna. That command worked
through Arjuna and carried him through the battle. This word, this state of
being dictated to by the divine, can only be known after freedom.
 4

Desires will only be a problem when they leave an

impression in the mind

Question: It is fairly easy for me to convince myself that I have no desires,

but how do I know that it is true? If I need something in the moment, how do
I know if it is a need or a desire? I may be eating, for example. I eat a little,
and if I still feel a little hungry, I might decide to eat some more. How do I
tell if that extra helping of food is a need or a desire? I can convince myself
that I need to eat to survive, but when does genuine need cross the boundary
into self-indulgent desire?

Papaji: If you feel hungry, you eat. If you feel thirsty, you drink. These are
not desires. You eat, you drink, and then you forget about it. Can you
remember what you had for lunch two days ago? If you can’t, there is no
desire involved. It was just something you did, which you needed to do, and
then forgot about.

Question: Actually, I don’t remember that particular meal, but since I tend to
eat the same thing every day, I could make a good guess about what I
probably ate at that meal.

Papaji: This amounts to the same thing. If you eat the same thing every day,
it’s not a desire. You are inhaling air every few seconds. Do you have a
problem with this? Do you have a desire to breathe in before you inhale? If
you forget to inhale, what will happen to you?

Question: I’ll die.

Papaji: So, inhaling is the most important need. Until you have satisfied this
one, you can’t even begin to satisfy any of the others. But desire is actually
something that you keep in the mind, something that troubles you because
you are having some problem in fulfilling it. Desire is something that stays in
the memory; it’s something that you can’t get rid of. Breathing is not like this
because it goes on automatically. It doesn’t nag at you, saying, ‘Fulfil my
desire to breathe’. Food is somewhat similar. When you feel hungry, you put
food in the mouth; you swallow it, and then you forget about it. Once the
food has gone into the stomach, you forget about it.
Desires that are not fulfilled are the ones that are going to trouble you.
Desires that land in the memory are going to cause problems. They will
always be pushing themselves forward, saying, ‘I must have this, I must have
this’. Pressure to fulfil unfulfilled desires brings about manifestation. It is
samsara. This is why we are all here again, in yet another birth. If there was
no desire, you would not have manifested at all. This desire is bringing you
into a body again and again. Desire is attachment, and attachment causes us
endless problems. It is better to forget desires completely. Don’t let them
lodge in the memory.
Fulfilling the necessities of life will not cause you any problems. It is the
other ones that will cause you trouble.

Question: Yes, fulfilling desires seems to be an endless thorn. It’s jabbing all
the time, making me go out to fulfil desires again and again.

Papaji: Desires will only be a problem when they leave an impression in the
mind. It is the impressions that are dangerous, not the desires themselves.
When a bird flies, it doesn’t leave a mark in the air. When a fish swims it
doesn’t leave any trace on the surface of the water. If we could move through
life without leaving any impressions, any footprints, on the mind, we would
have no problems at all. These footprints are the problem, not the desires
themselves. You store up thoughts in your mind: ‘I should have done this; I
should not have done that,’ and so on. These are the footprints that bring you
back again and again to engage with this world process.
There was a teacher who was travelling with his student in the forest.
There had been some heavy rain and a small, shallow stream had swollen into
a much deeper river. The two of them put their robes on their shoulders and
prepared to ford the river. On the bank of the river there was a prostitute who
had to reach the other side of the river because she had been booked to dance
at a wedding. She was in her full dancing regalia and couldn’t cross because
it was neck deep. The teacher put her on his shoulders, carried her across the
river and put her down on the other side. She went off to her function and the
student and the teacher continued their journey.
The student was very concerned about what his teacher had done. He
thought to himself, ‘My teacher says I must never touch a woman, yet he has
lifted a prostitute and carried her across this river’. For quite some time these
thoughts were bothering him.
Eventually, ten miles down the road, he turned to his teacher and asked,
‘Sir, may I ask a question?’ and the teacher said ‘Yes’.
‘Didn’t you tell me never to touch a woman?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Well, what about this woman you helped across the river. She was a
prostitute, yet you helped her to cross the river by putting her on your
shoulders.’
The teacher replied, ‘She wanted and needed help. She needed to cross
the river to go to work. She would not have been able to cross the river
without our help. I put her on my shoulders and carried her across. I did my
job, put her down, and then forgot all about it. Why are you still carrying her?
I put her down miles ago.’
The prostitute here denotes desire. The teacher did what was necessary,
and then forgot all about it. The student had thoughts about the incident –
footprints – in his head, and these caused him to suffer for ten miles of
walking. If something needs to be done, do it and forget about it. Don’t carry
thoughts about it afterwards. These lingering thoughts will bring you back
into samsara, back into the endless round of birth and death. Whenever there
is a desire that leaves footprints, there is samsara. Where there is desire of
this kind, there is bondage. When there is no desire at all, there is freedom.
The desire-free state is nirvana, the pure state of nirvana. Nirvana means ‘no
desire’.

Question: Does having no desire mean having no thought? When you arrive
at the place of no desires, do thoughts arise, or are they absent?

Papaji: Thought itself is a desire. Thought arises because of an earlier desire

for something. Desire and thought arise together.

Question: What about abstract thought?

Papaji: What is abstract thought? Abstract thought is ‘I am nirvana. I am

thoughtless. I am free.’ This is abstract thought. Abstract thought is no
thought. The state of no thoughts is abstract thought. Why should there be
thoughts then?

Question: You say ‘Leave no footprints’, and I can appreciate the wisdom of
what you are saying. It sounds the right and perfect way to live. But what do I
do with the footprints that are already there? My memory is full of them.

Papaji: Yes, the memory is still there. And yet, at the same time, you aspire
for this nirvana. Let this aspiration be a candle in your hand, a fire in your
hand, a torch in your hand. The torch – ‘I want to be free’ – is in your hand.
When you enter the room that contains all these desires, what will happen
next?

Question: You see them.

Papaji: This torch you have in your hand is not just for looking; it is also for
burning. If you look at a desire, it will burn. Go on. Do it. Pick up any desire
that you can find in this room of memories, any thought you like, put it in
front of you, and look at it. Hurry up! You have a torch. Shine it on
something in your memory.
You have to understand what I need from you. When you have that
burning torch in your hand, the thought in front of you gets lit. It catches fire
and burns. Look at something in front of you. What do you see?

Question: The desire itself. I see it with the torch.

Papaji: You haven’t done it. I will explain again. Take a torch in your hand.
Bring out a thought or a desire in front of you and see what it is. May I
explain again what I want you to do? Take a torch in your hand and shine it
on any object that comes in front of you in your mind. If it is a towel, then
you say ‘I see a towel’. Just tell me whatever thought is coming up in front of
you. I am not asking you to guess or speculate or give some philosophical
answer. I am simply asking you to shine a torch into this store of memories
that you were just complaining about and tell me what you see.
You are thinking about this as if it is some puzzle that you have to solve.
It is not. I am just asking you to tell me what you see. If, as you claim, you
have a memory full of old thoughts, it shouldn’t be hard to find one. Speak
up! There are always twenty thousand thoughts fighting for attention. Pick
one up, put it down in front of you, look at it, and then tell me, ‘This is the
thought that I see’. Come on, tell me. Why is this taking so much time?

Question: Ah … it’s only one thought that you want. You want exactly….

Papaji: That’s what I am saying. Listen properly. Repeat to yourself what I

have just told you, and then reply. Don’t waste the time of the others. Take
this torch in your hand, shine it, and then tell me what it is illuminating. What
is the thought that is at the forefront of your mind?

Question: No thought.

Papaji: Ah, that’s it. ‘No thought.’ You said it was difficult. If you keep this
torch in your hand and look for a thought or a desire, everything will
disappear. This is the state of nirvana. What else could nirvana be? There,
you have no thoughts. If you have no thoughts, there is no time; no time
means no mind; no mind means no memory; no memory means no garbage;
no garbage means no samsara; no samsara means no cycle, no cycle of birth
and death; no cycle of birth and death means no suffering. This is how to end
it all, right now, in this moment. It doesn’t take time at all. It can be done
right now.

Question: [new questioner] When I hold up that torch, I see a desire to be

healthy, to have no pain in my body. What should I do with that desire?

Papaji: That’s OK. You can keep this desire.

Question: I can keep this one?

Papaji: The body is something on the outside. Maintaining good health and
having a desire to stay healthy are not going to create problems for you.
Then, when you have this good health, have a look at what you have.
Study it carefully. Ask yourself, ‘What is this body? Is the body inside or
outside?’ Find out what the source of this body is. You say, ‘I have a body’.
What is the source of this statement? What is this ‘I’ that claims it has a
body? What is your relationship with this body?

Question: I am a body.

Papaji: And then you say, ‘I want to have a healthy body’.

Question: Yes, I want a healthy body.

Papaji: OK, so let’s go back to my question ‘Who is this “I” who owns the
body?’

Question: The ‘I’ who owns the body is healthy at the moment.

Papaji: Go to this ‘I’ and find out more about it. It will give you very
powerful assistance. Return to this ‘I’ and you will see a very healthy body.
Go there and see for yourself. Return to the source of this question, and you
will get its answer. Go back to the ‘I’. Slowly go back there. You start with ‘I
want a healthy body’. Go back to the ‘I’ that wants it and see what is there.
What are you getting out of this? Do it slowly, but first understand what I
mean, what I am talking about. ‘I’ is the subject and ‘need a healthy body’ is
the predicate. I am advising you to stay with the subject and ignore the
predicate. Begin with this ‘I’. Return to its source and finish the enquiry. You
don’t need to meditate to do this. Just return there following the way that you
emerged. As you came out, go back that same way.

Question: OK. The body needs a healthy ‘I’.

Papaji: OK. Now find out if this ‘I’ is healthy or diseased. How about this
‘I’? Is it a sick ‘I’ or a healthy ‘I’?

Question: Healthy.
Papaji: If it is healthy, then everything is healthy because I can tell you that
this ‘I’ is everything. Stick to this thing, this ‘I’ that you are saying is healthy.
If you step out of it, there will be suffering, disease, unhappiness and death.
Just step out of it and see what happens.

Question: I don’t think I want to step out of it.

Papaji: You wrote this letter to me, didn’t you? In this letter you said that
you could find no words to express your gratitude. You say, ‘I have no words
to express the gratitude’. So, you don’t need words. This is the best kind of
expression. Silence is the best expression and the highest state. It is a very
rare state to live in. You say, ‘I can’t find any words of gratitude’. You don’t
need any words if you are in that silence. There is no word that has so far
been found in any dictionary that expresses the gratitude of this silence.
People say, ‘In the beginning was the word’. The word goes right back to
the beginning. Then the statement goes on to say ‘and the word was God’. So
God is also a word. But beyond words, beyond God, who is also just a word,
there is something else, something that no one ever speaks about. Everyone
can use words; everyone can talk about God or any other word, but that is not
the true experience. In the true experience there are no words at all. If you
have found this silence, you won’t need any words at all. It’s a very good
place to be. It will be enough for you.

[Long pause]

‘I am free’ is a healthy thought. If you keep up this thought, everything

will instantaneously be healthy. If not, everybody will suffer. The other
thoughts that keep you busy all the time are just a disease that stops you from
being truly healthy. To ward off this disease, just keep up this thought of
freedom: ‘I am free; I am in nirvana’. A healthy mind will keep the body
healthy as well. And for a healthy mind have the thought ‘I am free’. This is
the most healthy thought.
When you say, ‘I am the body’, this is a diseased thought. If you think
like this, you are living in the graveyard. All bodies sooner or later have to
return to the graveyard, don’t they? When you have this ‘I am the body’
thought, you are living in a graveyard, but the opposite thought, ‘I am not the
body’, is a very healthy thought. Why should you have bad thoughts? If you
have a mind that can think, then use it to have good thoughts. There is no
better thought than this ‘I am free’ thought. If you can’t stick to this ‘I am
free’ thought, the other thoughts that displace it will put you in suffering. You
therefore have this option. The choice is left to you which way you go. You
become what you think; you are what you think. If the mind decides, ‘I am
bound’, then ‘bound’ is what you are. But if the mind decides, ‘I am free’,
then ‘free’ is what you are. It’s entirely your own decision.
It’s a very rare choice that is available to very few human beings. There
are six billion human beings and countless other species. There are very few
of us, but how many mosquitoes are there? How much marine life is there?
How many worms? How many germs? How many people or beings are
presented with this choice? Out of six billion people and the countless
billions of other animals, how many truly aspire for freedom? How many? I
would say that twenty would be a liberal estimate. It’s a very small number.
They are very lucky people. They have a mountain of luck, a mountain of
past merits. Only when you have a mountain of merits can you aspire for
freedom.

Question: [new questioner] Isn’t saying ‘I want to be free’ also some kind of
attachment? If you are really free, you don’t have to think about it or say it.
You are saying that this one thought – ‘I want to be free’ – can take you to
freedom, but isn’t clinging to this thought all the time also some sort of
attachment?

Papaji: This thought is a symptom, a sign that other attachments have been
dropped. When you have detached yourself from everything in the past,
present and future, only then will this thought arise. How can you give rise to
this? It will only arise after the cremation of all other thoughts. Once it
happens, once the other thoughts have been dropped, it has an unstoppable
momentum that takes you to your goal.
Look at the case of the Buddha. A prince is asleep in his palace in the
middle of the night. The most beautiful woman in the kingdom is lying by his
side. He gets out of bed and the thought arises in him, ‘I want to be free’.
That thought arose because the other thoughts, the other attachments, no
longer had any hold on him. He had wealth, youth, health, a comfortable life,
a beautiful wife, but nothing mattered to him except this thought ‘I want to be
free’.
This man had never seen suffering at all because none was allowed inside
his palace. Yet, in that moment, 2,600 years ago, an unstoppable thought, ‘I
want to be free’, arose in this prince. All his previous attachments were
instantly dropped. There was a horse waiting for him outside the palace gates.
The horse made no noise and the palace guards slept through his escape.
Some power, freedom itself, helped him to escape because it wanted to claim
him.
No ordinary man can have that thought. This thought will rise up, and its
rising will end all other desires. In ordinary minds thoughts of enjoyment will
come. ‘I want to have this. This much I have right now. Tomorrow I will
have some more.’ This is desire. This is attachment, and this is the state in
which virtually everyone lives. Those six billion people I was just speaking
of are all planning and scheming: ‘Today I have this; tomorrow I will have
that.’ This is how you are all living, and this is samsara. ‘I am enjoying so
much today, and tomorrow I will enjoy even more.’
You are living in this body like a parrot in a cage. At any moment this
parrot can fly away. You are only guaranteed this instant to make this
decision. Future instants are not under your control, and they may not even be
given to you. Make the best of the present moment because the future is not
in your hands.
 5

People who want to be busy don’t come to satsangs

such as these

Question: I can see that I still have many doubts. I think I am somehow
expecting to have some big experience, but at the same time I look at myself
and I see that I haven’t changed. I listen to you when you say it is very simple
and I think I doubt that too. There is some expectation that it ought to be...

Papaji: ...very hard, very difficult.

Question: Yes, difficult.

Papaji: So you would be more inclined to believe me if I prescribed some

hard penance for you. Maybe I should tell you to go to the Himalayas and
hang yourself upside down for a long time. I have seen people who do that.

Question: I don’t know what to think.

Papaji: This is what people are doing. You can join them and do these idiotic
things or you can keep quiet. You can do these yoga exercises if you want to.
You can put your head down and your feet up for an hour while you chant
your mantras. The mind wants to engage you in activities. It is going to
encourage you to do silly things because it likes to be busy. But if I say,
‘Don’t stir a single thought’, you can’t do it. And you don’t want to do it
because you think it is too simple. Just give up all your mental activities for
some time and see what happens.

Question: I still have so many concepts, and they are all swirling around
inside me. Theories about different states of consciousness, theories about
energy and light coming up in certain places, and so on. All these different
things.
Papaji: Yes, different books describe these things in different ways. These
differing accounts are meant for different kinds of temperaments. What kind
of spiritual exercise you pick will depend on your spiritual temperament.
Because everyone wants to keep his mind engaged in activities, many
different methods are prescribed for all the different types of people. But no
one teaches anyone to keep quiet. The teachings that people receive are all
about doing things and keeping busy. You can keep the voice busy with
chanting or singing, you can keep the body busy with yoga or pranayama, or
you can keep the mind busy by making it concentrate on an object of
meditation. While you are busy in all these different ways, you are never
keeping quiet. Religions and teachers can only thrive as long as they have
activities to prescribe and enforce. If you keep quiet, the religions will fail,
the teachers will fail, and the teachings will fail. Just keep quiet. That is the
way to find peace and love among people.
Keep quiet and the whole structure of religion will collapse. Religion
teaches you fear: ‘If you don’t do this or that you will go to hell.’ All
religions are based on fear, fear of the consequences of not doing what the
religious teachers tell you you must do. No religion teaches you to keep quiet,
to rest quietly in your own Self.
If you can keep quiet for just a few minutes of your whole span of life,
perhaps you will win peace. This is the way to approach reality, liberation,
nirvana. Keeping quiet is up to you.
People who want to be busy don’t come to satsangs such as these. Since
they can’t sit still even for a few minutes, their temperaments will take them
somewhere else. They will go to the hills. They will go to the Himalayas,
crying out that they must visit this temple or that one. They will spend weeks
walking to Badrinath or Kedarnath. These places are twelve thousand feet
high, and you need to expend a lot of effort to get there. These people who
cannot spend five minutes sitting quietly in their houses will happily suffer
physically for weeks on their journey to one of these places. If you ask them,
they will say that they are going to these places because their religion
prescribes such activities. The real reason is that they can’t keep quiet for five
minutes, so they have to do something else instead.
If a teacher just tells you to stay at home and keep quiet, his business will
not flourish. He cannot run his business giving out advice such as this, so he
has to tell you something else instead. No religion will survive on advice
such as this. No teaching will flourish and no books will be published.
Just keep quiet. This is the way. Without this, you will not find peace
anywhere. Doing and thinking will not produce peace.

Question: I have memories of experiences I once had: energy everywhere in

the body, intense feelings of bliss, and so on. When I sit here I have an
expectation that something like this should happen because of this past
memory. My feeling is, ‘If it is not like this, then it cannot be real’. This
makes it very difficult for me to accept that keeping quiet will be enough. I
have expectations of something more, something dramatic and tangible.

Papaji: You should not expect anything at all. An expectation is something

that your mind projects. When this happens, your mind just runs after this
projection, wanting to fulfil or experience it. While this is going on, the mind
is not quiet. So, first of all, you have to keep your mind quiet, and this means
that expectations should not arise in the mind.
‘Where does this expectation rise from?’ Go back to its source and see.
Having expectations did not provide you with any satisfaction, any peace.
Since you have not fulfilled your expectations and since having them is not
making you happy, spend a few minutes of your time on discovering where
this expectation comes from. What is its source? If you can’t find satisfaction
outside by having an expectation, or by trying to fulfil it, look inside and find
the place where it arises. Try to locate that place. Instead of running outside,
arrest the mind which is running out and bring it back to its source.
You can do whatever you want. You can follow whatever path seems
helpful to you. There is no pressure here. Follow whatever path brings good
results. The results are more important than the teaching itself. It is better that
you work on this problem yourself and come to your own conclusion. You
want peace of mind, don’t you? Investigate how it can happen. Work on
yourself and see. You have been going to see so many gurus and ashrams.
Wherever you are benefited, go to that place.

Question: [new questioner] Is it all right sometimes to do some sort of

exercise? If we feel there is a benefit, should we do them? Sometimes it feels
good to do some form of spiritual exercise, and at other times it feels good to
keep quiet. Is there some sort of contradiction here?

Papaji: No, no, doing these exercises is not a problem. Since you can’t sit
quietly all the time, you do some yogic exercises. There is no harm in this.
You have to maintain the body. Eating good food and doing some form of
yoga can be good for this.

Question: I was thinking more about mental exercises.

Papaji: They can also be helpful.

Question: So, if one feels some benefit, it’s better to practise to reach a quiet
mind? For example, I have found from experience that if I concentrate on my
breath, I feel that after some time it is easier for me to sit down and be quiet.

Papaji: These things can be helpful. Breathing exercises can be helpful

because while you are controlling the breath, the thought processes are also
being controlled. These exercises are also good for the health. Usually we
have sixteen breaths every minute. If you can reduce that to twelve by having
longer, deeper breaths, you will improve your health, and if you are watching
your breathing at the same time, your thoughts will be less. So pranayama
[breath control] and yogic exercises are good. They go together. If your body
is sick, you can’t do anything. You must maintain it properly with good food,
sattvic food, and some exercise. There are many exercises that you can do,
but a few minutes of yoga every day will always benefit you physically. In
America there are programmes on TV every morning that get people to do a
few simple exercises before they go off to work.

Question: There are also exercises in which the breath is retained for some
time. They also feel good to me. Is it OK to do these practices, or are they
dangerous?

Papaji: You can also do this. The ratio should be four-eight-four. Four
seconds inhalation, eight seconds retention and four seconds exhalation.

Question: I have heard of exercises where the retention is much longer – a

minute or more.
Papaji: Retention of the breath is called kumbhaka. While kumbhaka is being
practised, you cannot think. Pranayama also wards off many diseases. Do it
in the fresh air, where the air is good. Before you start your meditation, you
can do some pranayama to calm the mind. Slowing the breath is also good
for physical longevity, if that’s what you want. Animals that have short lives
usually breathe very quickly. Animals that have long slow breaths live much
longer. The human life span is calculated to be about eighty years, breathing
at the usual rate of sixteen breaths a minute. If you can learn to slow your
breath down over a long period of time, you will get healthier and live longer.

[There was a long pause and then Papaji turned to a new person.]

Where are you from?

Question: Arizona.

Papaji: These exercises I have been talking about come from a different
method, a different school. The school of kundalini yoga. The kundalini
energy will rise if you do them properly, but to do this properly you need a
very special way of life. You have to live in a very clean place where the air
is clean and you have to make the body very sattvic. I don’t think this is
possible nowadays. Very few people can do it. People teach it, but they
haven’t been able to put the teachings into practice themselves. I have seen
one man in Rishikesh who could do this, but he was the only one. The rest
just talk about it. There are books about it also. There are Sanskrit texts
translated by Woodroffe such as Yoga Pradipika. Has anybody read it?

Question: I have seen it. Didn’t he call himself ‘Avalon’ when he wrote it?

Papaji: It’s an excellent book, and very well written. It was translated by
Woodroffe. I saw it thirty or forty years ago. Good photos and diagrams of all
the chakras. It was a very nice book with very good descriptions.

Question: [new questioner] What do you mean by a special kind of life?

Papaji: You have to live a secluded life, without contact with many people.
You have to have a special diet with very light food, and you have to spend
the whole day doing these practices. These exercises will only work if you do
them full-time.

Question: What is the difference between the kind of experiences you get
from pursuing these exercises and freedom?

Papaji: Through these exercises you can get all kinds of powers: levitation,
multi-location, manifesting objects, and so on. You can read minds and you
can be clairvoyant – all these things are possible through this power. But all
these special powers will function through the ego. ‘I am doing this feat’, ‘I
am performing levitation’, and so on. The ‘I’ is still there. Sometimes, some
of these powers come to people even if they haven’t done any practices to
attain them.
I met one man in the Himalayas who could levitate. He could stay
suspended in mid-air, but he was restless and without peace.
He told me, ‘My guru taught me to do this, but before he died he said,
“This is not the ultimate truth. I was not able to find a teacher who could give
me this ultimate truth. After I pass away, look for a teacher who can give you
true knowledge.”’
That man showed me all his powers, and some of them were very
impressive. I met another man in Gujarat who was clairvoyant. He could see
into your mind and tell you exactly why you had come to see him. These are
powers, though. They are not freedom. The powers belong to samsara, and
the more you indulge in them, the more samsara multiplies.

Question: [new questioner] Are you saying that these powers take you away
from freedom? Or are they a stage that one goes through on the way to
freedom?

Papaji: They don’t lead you to freedom because they keep you preoccupied
with other things, things that have nothing to do with the Self. If you are pure
enough and practise long enough, you can learn how to levitate. The
instructions are there in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. You can spend years on this,
but even if you finally succeed, you are only doing something that every
butterfly can do.
Question: The main idea of kundalini yoga is not levitation. It is to make the
kundalini rise to the head. The yogis and the yogic texts say that when it
reaches the sahasrara, freedom results.

Papaji: Freedom does not rise or fall, nor is it a result of anything rising or
falling. People who master kundalini yoga can sit in a yogic samadhi for
months at a time, but this is not freedom.
A few hundred years ago there was one man who could enter samadhi for
six months at a time. He went to his king and said, ‘I can sit in samadhi for
six months, without eating, and without answering the call of nature’.
The king didn’t believe him so he said, ‘If you can do this, I will give you
anything you want’.
The yogi said, ‘I want the horse that you ride. When I come out of
meditation after six months, you must reward me by giving me the horse that
you ride.’ The king agreed to the terms.
Six months passed but the yogi could not come out of his meditation.
Years went by and he was still stuck in this state. The king died and his son
took over. After twenty years the yogi opened his eyes. Since everyone in the
court knew the story of this yogi, he was taken to the king as soon as he had
regained full consciousness.
He told the new king, ‘I want the horse that was promised to me’.
The king told him, ‘I know about this promise that was made by my
father but I can’t fulfil it because that particular horse died years ago.
However, I will happily give you a new one since you have proved your
point.’
When the yogi went into this samadhi, he had the desire for a particular
horse and the expectation that he would be given a horse when he came out
of the samadhi a few months later. This is not freedom. He suspended his
mind and his desire for twenty years, but when they started functioning again,
the desire was still there. True freedom is not to have any desire at all.
Does a king ever think, ‘I want that building over there’, or, ‘I want that
particular horse’? He doesn’t because he knows that everything already
belongs to him. Everything in his domain is his already. When, through
desirelessness, you reach the Self, you find that everything is your own Self,
and in that state the thought ‘I want this’ or ‘I want that’ no longer arises
because there is nothing separate from you, and no ‘I’ to want it. When
everything is your own Self and nothing is apart from you, how can there be
anything separate from you that you desire to own? In that state you will not
have to beg for anything.
There was another Indian king who used to give to whomsoever came to
him for assistance. After he came out from his prayers, he would give to
anyone who had come to see him. A fakir came to see him while he was
praying. The king was praying out loud, so the fakir could hear that he was
asking for God’s assistance on several matters.
When the prayers were over, the king came out and said, ‘I’ve finished
praying. Now you can tell me what you want. Whatever it is, I will give it to
you.’
The fakir replied, ‘I thought I had come to see a king but I have
discovered that you too are a beggar. You are begging from God. I came here
with a small desire which I thought you might be able to fulfil, but now I see
that it is better to beg from the same person that you are begging from. I will
take my request directly to God himself.’
Who is not a beggar in this world? Everyone is begging either from other
people or from God himself. But there is another way. If you don’t ask for
anything, and if you desire nothing, then everything will be given to you.
People say that God is very happy when you go to him and say, ‘I want this’,
or ‘I want that’. When this happens, you get what you want, but then you
walk away from God. However, when you want nothing at all, if you ask for
nothing and desire nothing, then God himself will be walking behind you,
following you wherever you go. Whatever you do and wherever you go, he
will always be there. Don’t ask and don’t desire and everything will be added
unto you. Then, you will not need to beg any more.

Question: [new questioner] I once had an experience in which I felt that I

was dissolving totally. I felt that my body was dissolving, and everything else
was dissolving as well. It was the most beautiful and peaceful thing I have
ever experienced, but it was so overwhelming I was not able to do anything
in the world. All I could do was lie down and do nothing at all. This
experience has gone now, but the memory of it is still there. Nowadays, I
tend to compare this experience with others. I have this feeling that this state
was freedom, or something very close to it, because I can’t think of anything
more beautiful than being in that state. My ego, my sense of ‘I’, had
dissolved in that state, rendering me incapable of doing anything. How can it
be that people are able to function in the state in which the ‘I’ has gone? It
was my experience that I could do nothing except lie down and enjoy it.

Papaji: You were not near a real teacher at that time. That was your problem,
your misfortune. If you had been able to meet with a true teacher at that time
he would have shown you another way, a way in which you could have been
200 per cent active, not just normally active.

Question: So it is possible to be in this state and still act normally in the

world?

Papaji: Yes, and as I just said, you can be twice as active as everyone else.
200 per cent active.
 6

Supreme devotion is not to give rise to a single

thought.

Question: Papa, Kavita and I had a debate this morning about prakriti. If I
understand it correctly, prakriti is the five elements plus mind. We were not
quite sure whether mind is actually creating the elements. Or alternatively,
that the elements are there and that the mind, by perceiving them brings them
into existence.

Papaji: They’re simultaneous.

Question: If the mind is looking at a fire, it is saying, ‘There’s a fire’. Are

you saying that if the mind is not saying ‘There’s a fire’, then fire is not
there?

Papaji: Mind creates everything, simultaneously. First the mind is there, and
then, simultaneously, everything else is there. Mind is thought, isn’t it? When
you wake up, thought arises. The mind rises first, and then everything arises
simultaneously.
You are asking about nature, the combination of the five elements. The
grossest thing is earth, the first element. Then less gross, more subtle, is
water, and so on. The last element, the most subtle one, is ether, space. But
where did all these elements spring from? They are all in the mind. Ether, the
space element, and the mind are similar in one respect. Everything is in the
ether, in space, and all of these elements are in the mind, in thought. All these
things are thought and thought alone. Now, in order to understand prakriti,
nature, the five elements, you have to find out what the original thought is,
the one that contains and brings into being all these things.
These five elements are also in the body. In order to understand the body,
you have to understand these elements, and in order to understand the
elements you have to understand the mind. Whatever phenomenon you pick,
you can get back to its fundamental nature by tracing it back to these
elements and the mind that creates it.
Now, just pick out one thought. If you can understand that one thought –
what it is and how it comes into existence – you will understand the whole
process and nature of the mind.
Question this one thought. Look at this thought and try to see what it is.
Find out what the source of this thought is. When you have found that source
you will understand the mind, and then you will enter into the source from
where everything emerges. There, no one and nothing has ever existed.
This is how the process of nature, prakriti, comes into existence. It arises
from purusha, the first being. All beings are absorbed into this first being and
perish there, but that first being never perishes, never vanishes.

Question: When you call purusha ‘the first being’, do you mean a being such
as Krishna?

Papaji: Krishna himself once addressed purusha, saying, ‘I am purusha,’ but

it is not the manifestation of Krishna that is the purusha, it is the unmanifest
from which it springs. Krishna knew himself to be the unmanifest purusha.
Purusha is beyond all the concepts and perceptions of the mind. A concept
can be grasped, but purusha cannot be.
Manifestation can be grasped, and so can non-manifestation insofar as it
is a concept that is the opposite of manifestation, but what I am talking about
is something that is beyond them both. I am speaking of something that is
beyond even the non-manifest. That which is beyond it is purusha.

Question: Are you saying that it’s the equivalent of Brahma, the creator of
all this manifestation?

Papaji: No, Brahma is not the equivalent; he is just the creator of

manifestation. There is a place where even Brahma perishes, for Brahma is
not permanent. Everything, including Brahma and the other gods will perish,
but that purusha itself will never perish. It is indestructible.
You have been studying the Gita. Which translation are you reading?
What we are speaking about is in that book.

[Papaji opened her copy of the Gita, the edition translated by Swami
Chinmayananda, and started reading the passage that begins at chapter
eight, verse fourteen:]

14 I am easily attainable by that steadfast yogi who constantly

remembers me daily, not thinking of anything else, O Partha.
15 Having attained me, these mahatmas do not again take birth,
which is the house of pain and is non-eternal, they having
reached the highest perfection, moksha [liberation].
16 Worlds up to the world of Brahmaji are subject to rebirth, O
Arjuna, but he who reaches me, O Kaunteya, has no birth.
17 Those people who know [the length of] the day of Brahma,
which ends in a thousand yugas [aeons], the night which [also]
ends in a thousand yugas, they know day and night.

Though the day and night of Brahma, his coming and going in
manifestation, take thousands of yugas to complete, he is still impermanent.
Because he comes and he goes, he is not the imperishable substratum.
Brahma’s days and Brahma’s nights all proceed from the unmanifest and
return there.

Question: And that is purusha?

Papaji: Yes. The text says that all manifestations proceed from the
unmanifest, and at the approach of night they merge into that alone. That
place into which all these things merge is the unmanifest purusha.

Question: Then the unmanifest is what I am not?

Papaji: [reading from the book again, starting at 8:18]

18 From the unmanifested all the manifested proceed at the

coming of the ‘day’ [of Brahma]; at the coming of the ‘night’
[of Brahma] they dissolve verily into that alone which is
called the unmanifest.
 20 But verily there exists, higher than that unmanifest [avyakrt]
another unmanifested, which is eternal, which is not destroyed
when all beings are destroyed.
21 That which is called the unmanifest and the imperishable, that,
they say, is the highest goal. They who reach it never return.
That is my highest abode [or state].

This is the highest attainment.

Question: This is definitely what I am not!

Papaji: This is the highest attainment. I will read again:

21 That which is called the unmanifest and the imperishable, that,

they say, is the highest goal. They who reach it never return.
That is my highest abode [or state].

And then the next verse says:

22 That highest purusha, O Partha, is attainable by unswerving

devotion to Him alone, within whom all beings dwell, by
whom all this is pervaded.

Are you really reading this?

Question: Yes.

Papaji: Listen again:

21 That which is called the unmanifest and the imperishable, that,

they say, is the highest goal. They who reach it never return.
That is my highest abode [or state].
22 That highest purusha, O Partha, is attainable by unswerving
devotion to Him alone, within whom all beings dwell, by
whom all this is pervaded.

Question: [new questioner] Do you agree with this, Papaji? That one can
only succeed through devotion?

Papaji: Yes.

Question: It is only through devotion that one arrives there?

Papaji: By ‘devotion’ I mean ‘supreme devotion’.

Question: What is supreme devotion?

Papaji: Supreme devotion is not to give rise to a single thought. This is

supreme devotion. Then you are not carried away. This is the supreme
devotion. What else can it be?
‘Devotion’ really means ‘not divided’. The Sanskrit word bhakti actually
means ‘where there is no division’. The opposite word to bhakti is vibhakti.
Bhakti means unity, no division. Vibhakti means division. In supreme
devotion, supreme bhakti, there is no division.

Question: No division?

Papaji: No division means not to be divided. Don’t divide the mind. How is
the mind divided? By giving rise to thought. If you don’t give rise to a single
thought, then mind itself is not. Thought creates division.

Question: [new questioner] But then this supreme devotion and this
unmanifested purusha are one and the same thing.

Papaji: Yes, that is what is left when division goes. Vibhakti means division.
Where there is no division, where there is an undivided mind, this is bhakti.
This is called the supreme devotion. Devotion can be to someone, or to
something that is other than oneself, but supreme devotion is only to one’s
own Self.
There is Self and there is non-Self. There is imperishable and there is
perishable. To have devotion to the imperishable and to be one with it is
supreme devotion. Without this devotion I don’t think anything can happen.
The English word ‘devotion’ can be very misleading, but I can’t think of
a good English word that translates this very nice Sanskrit word, ‘bhakti’.
Nor can I think of a good word in English that adequately translates ‘jnana’.
We usually say ‘knowledge’ in English when we translate jnana. But
knowledge is not jnana. In English knowledge is of something, some object
that you know, whereas jnana is merely a subjective knowledge of one’s own
Self. For knowledge of other things we have other words.
Going back to bhakti, you can call it ‘love’ if you want to. ‘Love’ is one
way of expressing one aspect of bhakti, but it doesn’t cover all the nuances.
There is also a knowledge and an understanding in bhakti, a knowledge of
what is true and real.
We can say that there are two ways of expressing what the Self is: love
(bhakti) and knowledge (jnana). These are also the ways of discovering it. In
vichara, in enquiry, you look for the source of thought. You return to the
source, merge with the source and abide as the source. This is vichara. This
investigation is called ‘knowledge’, jnana. Devotion is loving your source.
When you love it with extreme, supreme love, you will be taken to that
source and you will know it. You must have single-minded love of this
source in order to get the true knowledge of it. When you have the supreme
love you have the supreme knowledge as well. This is just the same thing
expressed in two different ways. One is love and the other is knowledge.
 7

Who and where is this ‘I’ that wants to be free?

Papaji: There are desires for the things of this world, there is a desire for the
things of the next world, and then there is the fear of God. These three things
are keeping you away from freedom. You say that you have a desire for
freedom. If you give up these three, you will find that even the desire for
freedom cannot be sustained any more. It will leave you, and freedom itself
will remain.

Question: I find it very hard to give up desires.

Papaji: Give up desires for this world and the next, and give up even that
being who created you to have these desires. That is the meaning of what I
am saying. Then freedom will manifest itself and you will not need to desire
it any more.
That freedom is the one thing you can never give up or throw away. It is
not like some apple in your hand that can be thrown away. When all desires
have gone, including the desire for freedom, freedom remains.
Vyasa begins the Brahma Sutras by saying, ‘Now let me aspire for
freedom...’. This was something new and revolutionary. Before this people
would say, ‘Let me practise yoga, let me practise tantra, let me read the
sutras,’ and so on. This ‘freedom’ word, this idea of wanting freedom, was
not part of the vocabulary of the people who wanted to do all these things.
Vyasa said to himself, ‘Now, after many births, I have decided to win
freedom’.
This thought doesn’t arise in many minds. You can see thousands of
people doing all kinds of practices in ashrams all over the world, but I don’t
think any good is resulting from them. People are busy with their practices,
but freedom always remains untouched, unreached. In my lifetime, eighty
years of it, I have seen many big ashrams all over the world. The world is full
of swamis, ashrams, spiritual books, teachings and devotees, but where are
the results? Who is attaining freedom as a result of all this?
It is a very rare mind in which the candle of enlightenment will ignite.
This candle will burn very rarely. Many people go to ashrams and gurus
saying that they want freedom, but they are not really serious. People come
here with the same claim, but I don’t believe most of them.
Several centuries ago there was one swami in an ashram in Maharashtra.
Hundreds of people used to come to see him every day. One of his students,
an illiterate, asked, ‘Six hundred people are coming to see you every day.
Will all of them attain moksha, liberation?’
The illiterate was Kalyan and he looked after the ashram cowshed. Many
of the other devotees were educated people who were helping the swami to
compile a book.
‘No,’ said the swami. ‘They will not all attain it.’
Kalyan then asked, ‘Well, how many will? Five hundred?’
‘No.’
‘Two hundred?’
‘No.’
‘Twenty?’ asked Kalyan.
‘I will tell you tomorrow,’ said the swami.
During the night the swami wrapped a stained bandage around his leg,
and when the devotees came in the early morning, he claimed that he could
not stand up. They had all come to help him with his literary work before
they went off to their own jobs.
The swami said, ‘I have a very poisonous carbuncle on my leg. I will
probably die because of this poison. That is what the doctors are saying. But
the doctors also said, “If you can find someone who is willing to suck out the
poison for you, that person will die and you will probably get better.”’
One by one all the early morning visitors made some excuse and
hurriedly left.
‘I have to go to court today,’ said one. ‘I just came for your blessings.’
‘We are just about to start a pilgrimage,’ said others. ‘We just came for
darshan before we left.’
 Everyone made some sort of excuse and left. Eventually, Kalyan came in
and said, ‘Swami, there are no people here today. What happened?’
The swami said, ‘Kalyan, the whole night I was suffering with this
painful carbuncle. The doctor says I will die unless someone sucks out this
poison. The problem is, whoever sucks out this poison will die instead of
me.’
Kalyan said, ‘Swami, why didn’t you wake me up as soon as you felt the
pain? You cannot be allowed to die. What is the use of my own life? You are
taking care of so many lives. What is the use of my life? You must take it.’
He jumped forward and started to suck at the stained bandage. Much to
his surprise, he found a very sweet taste in his mouth. The swami had just put
a bandage on his leg and stained it with honey.
‘This is the answer to the question you asked me yesterday,’ said the
swami. ‘No one is coming here for freedom. They are coming here for
blessings for their marriages, their court cases, and so on. Nobody wanted to
look after me. No one was willing to sacrifice his life for his teacher except
you. You will get this freedom, and not them, because they are not serious
enough. You will get my robe and you will get my ashram when I die. I will
write to the king, who is also my devotee, and tell him of my decision.’
If you are serious about freedom, about liberation, you must want it to the
exclusion of all else. Let this desire burn unquenched night and day. If you
are seriously interested in freedom, this desire must be there all the time. It
will take you to freedom, at which point all desires will go, including the
desire for freedom.
If a fruit is hanging on a tree, it means that it is not fully ripe. When it
drops off of its own accord, the ripeness is complete. When your spiritual
ripening has been completed by this constant desire for freedom, you will
naturally drop into freedom itself and desires will no longer trouble you.
You have already wandered through the world of desires for many lives.
Millions of people suffer endlessly because they keep on chasing their
desires. If you want freedom with all your heart, you will give up all these
desires and want freedom alone because you will know that any other kind of
desire just brings you trouble. There are very, very few people who come to
that decision and stick to it. These are the ones who make it.
Question: Papaji, can there be any desire without thought? Is there ever a
desire but no thought?

Papaji: Thought will take you to some outside object. All thoughts are of
objects. The subject ‘I’ thinks a thought, which is an object. When you think,
a subject-object relationship is immediately established. Every object in this
process is something that belongs to the past. It is not the reality of who you
are here and now. Desire freedom and it will take you to the place of no
thought.

Question: What I am trying to say is that if I have a seed of a desire hidden

inside me, and I then see the object of my desire, a thought immediately
arises, ‘I want it’. It’s an unconscious and involuntary coming together of
thought and desire. Do you understand what I am trying to say?

Papaji: That’s what I am saying. All thoughts and desires bring into being a
relationship with the past. Thinking is clinging to objects that you take from
your memory, your record of the past. You have a subject-object relationship
with the past because you, the subject, are always grabbing at objects of
desire, which are memories you have of your past. Have instead the thought,
‘I want to be free’. Want it intensely enough and there will be no subject, no
object, no past and no future.

Question: This thought, ‘I want to be free’, is it like a seed that can

germinate inside me and grow?

Papaji: Who and where is this ‘I’ that wants to be free? There is no ‘I’ either
inside the body or outside it. When a doctor does a postmortem, he doesn’t
find an ‘I’ inside the body. If you x-ray a body, you don’t find an ‘I’
anywhere inside. You are using the word ‘inside’ because you are
presupposing that you are the body. And following on from that supposition,
you are also assuming that there must be an ‘I’ inside it.
If you question these suppositions by asking, ‘Whose body is it?’ you will
say to yourself, ‘It is mine’. Does not the ‘I’ who owns things exist prior to
the ownership of his possessions? Think about this and you must come to the
conclusion that the ‘I’ must have existed before the body came into existence.
If the ‘I’ existed before the body, then it did not simply come into existence
when the body was born. The ‘I’ does not have a birthday that corresponds to
the first appearance of the body. Question this ‘I’ that thinks that it was born
on a particular date.
If the ‘I’ exists on the outside, it would have been discovered by now.
Explorers have been everywhere, even to the moon, but they have not found
an ‘I’ anywhere. People have searched in themselves for the ‘I’, but no one
has found it there either. Why not? Because it doesn’t exist either inside or
outside.
 8

Grace is always encouraging you to seek it

Question: Is enlightenment an act of grace?

Papaji: Grace? Yes. Only grace. It is not won by any gymnastic feat, any
physical effort. If it were so, anyone could get it by effort. Anyone can make
an effort, but it is not enough. Grace alone is enough.
There are two types of grace: Atma kripa, the grace of the Self, and Guru
kripa, the grace of the Guru. Atma kripa rises from within, from within the
Self itself. The thought ‘I want to be free’ is a manifestation of the grace of
the Self. Having a determination to be free is a gift of grace from the Self.
The scriptures say that you need a mountain of merits to win the grace of the
Self. Not just a rock or a small hill but a mountain of merits that is higher
than Mount Meru, supposedly the highest mountain in the world. So, when
your accumulation of merits is higher even than the Himalayas, then this
desire will arise. This is the working of the grace of the Self. This grace can
arise within you and show you who you are, but most people don’t
understand this power, don’t understand the language in which it is trying to
speak to you.
When this happens, the Self arranges for you to meet someone who will
speak to you in your own language, someone who will appraise you of the
fact that the Self is within you, and that you have to seek it there. This is the
grace of the Guru. Even when the grace comes from what is apparently an
‘outside’ source, the form of the Guru, it is still only pointing to the Self
within, the power that will take you into the Self.
Grace is always encouraging you to seek it. Through grace a desire for
freedom has arisen in you; through grace you have been enabled to travel
here; grace is making you ask this question; even the question itself is grace.
There is nothing beyond or outside it. That means that your effort is also
grace. The fact that you can make the effort, the fact that you want to make
the effort – these are all manifestations of grace.
You can choose to make an effort by being determined to find out who
you are. That is the effort of self-enquiry. This arises from the determination,
‘I will find out who I am’. The other way is the path of grace, of surrender:
‘This is all Your grace. I am in Your hands.’ This path, this attitude, will
invoke the power that will look after you and take you to the Self.
Different temperaments take different paths. Here in India we call them
the monkey way and the cat way. The baby monkey holds onto its mother by
effort, by a strong grip. The mother cat picks up her kitten and takes it
wherever it needs to go. Whichever path you choose, it is all grace because
the decision ‘I will win freedom for myself’ is just as much a manifestation
of grace as the decision to leave everything to the divine, the power of the
Self.

Question: Do we have a choice between Atma kripa and Guru kripa? Is it

something we can decide for ourselves?

Papaji: Your temperament will choose for you. If you try to make a choice
that is opposed to your temperament, it will not work. It’s in your bones. The
path you choose and follow will be a consequence of your temperament.
There are three gunas – call them qualities of mind – that govern character
and personality: sattva, [purity, harmony], rajas [activity] and tamas
[dullness, sloth]. These gunas will drive your behaviour; they will direct you
along the path that is most suited to your temperament. If you are dominated
by rajas, you will be attracted by activity. You will be drawn to activities
such as yoga or tantra, things that will keep you busy. Such people are always
thinking, ‘I can do it. I have to do it.’ People with this guna end up doing
therapy and yoga, things that will keep them busy and occupied. This is not
so bad because 95 per cent of the people in the world are in tamas. They
don’t do anything at all. They live and die without coming to this spiritual
line at all.
If you are in sattva, you are a very focused person. You will have a sharp
discrimination and you will be able to find the Self by being still, without
thought, rather than by rushing around, looking for it.
You cannot choose your guna any more than you can choose your genes.
Your genes are the result of thousands of generations of physical
reproduction. Your guna is likewise the result of thousands of lifetimes of
experiences. Your genes decide the way you look; you don’t have any choice
in the matter. Your guna determines the quality of your mind, and this is just
as determined as your genes.
Arjuna, the warrior, tried to deny his nature on the battlefield when he
said that he was not going to fight, but Krishna told him that he had no choice
in the matter. This is how it is.
 9

In true love everything that is not yourself drops off

Papaji: In English we say ‘falling in love’. When you fall, you start in one
place and then end up somewhere lower down. But in the kind of love that I
am speaking of, there is no fall, no descent to a lower level. It is in the other
kinds of love that there is a fall.

Question: Do you mean there is a fall into desire?

Papaji: Desire is always a fall, but in the love I am talking about, there is
never a fall. You remain as you are. This is true love. To express the other
kind of love everyone says, ‘I fell in love’. In this physical kind of love it is
you who fall. In true love it is everything else, except for you, that falls away.
In true love everything that is not yourself drops off. When everything has
fallen away, this is real love. When you walk away from all other kinds of
love, you find true love.
Look at what happened to the Buddha. He was lying next to the most
beautiful woman in the kingdom. Physical love was there. Affection was
there, but it wasn’t enough for him. There was another kind of love that was
missing in his life. Though he had everything he could possibly want in the
world, he got up and walked out. When this call comes from true love, it
cannot be resisted. Kings have left their kingdoms and their queens in search
of this love. This is the supreme love that I am talking about.

Question: [new questioner] Sometimes I find it difficult to read holy books

because they are full of descriptions of these wonderful states. I read them
and I think, ‘Well, I haven’t experienced that state, that experience’. This
leads to thoughts and desires, judgements about where I am on the path.
Since they give rise to feelings of inadequacy, I prefer not to read such books.

Papaji: This is a good judgement, one that you have made after reading
many books.

Question: Well, I haven’t read that many.

Papaji: Then you are lucky. Maya has a big net that can catch fish for her in
many different ways. When a man turns his back on the world, on samsara,
there are many traps waiting for him. He can get caught in many different
ways. He may leave his friends, his relatives and his community, but he may
end up in the trap of a new community, an ashram. Or he may end up in the
trap of reading spiritual books. Getting lost in these books is a big trap.
Wherever you go, maya has a trap that is waiting for you. If you worship, you
can get trapped in the rituals of worship. If you follow the path of yoga, then
yogic samadhi will be a trap for you.
Do you understand? You can go into samadhi and feel very pleased with
yourself. You think afterwards, ‘I am having long samadhis. I can stay in
these states for six hours at a time.’
You can be a bhakta who does japa all day, but your rosary will end up
becoming your trap. You will think, ‘I am counting beads all day. I am doing
very well.’
Not even the gods are free from these traps of maya. For Vishnu, the
preserver of the universe, maya appeared as Kamala. Siva left his tapas for
Uma. Brahma got caught up in his creation. Who is free of these traps? No
one. Because whatever you do, whatever you think of, whatever you imagine
is a trap of maya.
However, let me tell you that all these traps are imaginary. Once you truly
know that they are all traps, you know that they are all in your imagination.
There is no door that is locking you in. You are free to walk away from
whatever trap you find yourself in.
Buddha walked out of his trap and found freedom. He lived in an isolated
pleasure garden and was kept apart from the normal world. An astrologer had
told his parents, ‘This man cannot stay in this world’. His mother had also
had a dream about this. After his birth his parents, the king and queen, tried
to keep him completely apart from the normal world. He had a beautiful
garden full of dancing girls, and for a wife he was given the most beautiful
woman in the kingdom. In his private little world there was no suffering, no
old age, no seeking except the seeking of physical pleasures.
One day he wanted to see what was outside his wall. He just took the
decision, ‘I want to see what is on the other side of this wall’. He made a
secret trip outside and for the first time in his life he saw suffering, old age
and death. He went back to his palace and decided that he had to renounce his
world – his kingdom, his family, his beautiful wife – in order to find the
secret of suffering and how to transcend it. He renounced everything and
walked out, secretly, in the middle of the night. It is said that the locks of the
palace unlocked themselves when he wanted to leave. It is said that the earth
itself became soft like butter so that the guards would not hear the noise from
the escaping horse’s hooves. Why and how? Because freedom loved this
man. Freedom fell in love with this prince who had exhibited such
tremendous renunciation. Freedom itself arranged his escape.
He must have been chosen by the supreme power for this escape, this
destiny of ultimately escaping his traps and finding freedom. Who, in a
similar situation has ever got up and walked out? Even the gods stayed
sleeping with their goddesses. This man woke up, was chosen to wake up,
because he had the courage to walk away from everything.
 10

I am the unique principle which makes the rose

grow

Papaji: The Vedas are thousands of years old. It is said that they are the
oldest books in the world. The word ‘Veda’ means ‘knowledge’, so these are
the books of knowledge. But even these Vedas say that knowledge cannot be
spoken about. They say, ‘neti-neti,’ ‘not this, not this’. Whatever you want to
say knowledge is, the Vedas reply with ‘neti-neti’. Though the Vedas claim to
be the books of knowledge, they concede that truth is something that cannot
be spoken about.

Question: At the beginning of the Tao Te Ching the same statement is made:
‘The Tao which can be spoken of is not the real Tao.’

Papaji: Truth is always unsaid. We can aspire for it, but we can never say
what it is. But remember, we should not aspire to attain, gain or achieve
anything. Why not? Because these things we attain are perishable. They
become our possessions, and possessions are things that you will one day
lose. If you attain something, that means there was a time prior to the
attainment in which the attainment was not there. If that attainment was
absent at some point in the past, it is something perishable; it is something
that will one day leave you and go away. The emptiness that is there in the
beginning, the emptiness that is there in the middle, and the emptiness that is
there at the end – this is the enduring truth. This is knowledge; this is the true
knowledge. The other kinds of knowledge can be read about, spoken about,
understood and practised, but they are not the true knowledge. So, all these
things that can be understood, known and attained, leave them alone because
they are not the truth. The truth is something else.

Question: [new questioner] Is it possible to achieve supreme devotion

through effort or only through non-effort?
Papaji: Give up all kinds of effort – mental and physical. When all these
types of effort have left you, there will be no attainment, no achievement left.

Question: You are saying that it can only happen through non-effort?

Papaji: If you don’t try to make any effort – physical, mental, intellectual –
what will happen? Just try to imagine what would happen. I received a letter
about this from a French girl recently. She didn’t speak any English. Her
husband translated our conversation for her. I will read you some portions
from her letter.

I spent a wonderful day with Maya three days ago. What a joy to
be near her and share the same understanding, the same
aliveness …

I do not know what she means by ‘aliveness’.

…knowing oneself to be. I have the feeling that I have known

Maya forever, and it is very true. She is really my own heart and
my own light and my sister. I love her and the aliveness takes
billions of forms, but what happiness when it recognises itself as
being the one in the appearance of whom I still name ‘the other’.
Maya will translate this letter...

...This morning, very early, tranquilly lying in my bed, I thought

of my children far away. Then there was a burning and
devouring question, ‘What am I really, now, at this precise
instant? What really are my children in this precise second?’ No
image, no concept sprang from this question, but suddenly I
knew the answer, behind words, images and concepts. I saw
very, very clearly the no-movement, the no-time, the no-distance,
the no-possibility of separation. Just the same everywhere, the
same in everything, the same in all things, the same being-
principle, now, just now without beginning, without end, without
form, with no colour, but alone, real, the substratum of
everything that is conceivable. This vision was the cry of being,
knowing itself to be and knowing itself to be only being.
 In a fraction of a second, out of time. How can she find out this thing?
When you put yourself in the experience and do it, then you can see in the
fraction of a second. And then she says, ‘no time’. If you do it, then you will
know this is out of time. If not, you will call it within time.

I returned to my point of origin, the original place-without-place

that I have never left as this place is me, is ‘I’ itself. Caught by
this shining truth, a very deep joy flooded me.

I was speaking earlier of true love. True love doesn’t go up or down; it is

transcendent.

Caught by this shining truth, a very deep joy flooded me. It was
as if the room had been bathed by the sweet, unsoundable peace
of ‘I’, unique. I clearly saw that I am only the being-principle,
moving everything, just now. Being, now itself. I am that ‘now’. I
am that same being. I am that being-principle without any name,
without any form, without any colour, without any shape, without
movement, but giving the name, the form, the colour, the shape,
the movement to everything that appears in the consciousness
‘I’.
I suddenly felt without the slightest doubt that I am the
unique principle which makes the rose grow, the birds sing, the
water flow in the forest, which paints the thousand colours in
nature. At the same time I am all, and yet I am nothing in
particular. Without the ‘me’, being, nothing is. Knowledge of
that-which-is cannot rise up except through me.
It’s a bit crazy, Master, what I write to you. It’s very difficult
to transmit, but nevertheless, I am trying to do it because with
your love, with your grace, which is also light and wisdom, there
is the conviction that the writing is also yours, which is why I am
able to do it. ‘I am only that.’
The conviction ‘I am only that’ becomes more and more
steady. I am the being-principle, the original principle from the
beginning, the principle ‘I’ and nothing else. I occupy all and am
 everywhere. I am everything. I am in everything. I am all. There
is no place for two, no possibility of any distance, of being far
away.
In a fraction of a second my children far away have
rebecome myself, nothing, but appearing in myself, the living
principle. So, no name, no more children far away, separated or
living anywhere else. I am the unique being-principle, now living
and manifesting itself through what I name ‘my children’, living
and manifesting also through the billions of forms, creating
billions of universes in order to recognise myself as unique.
If it is this way, I am as I have always been forever, and if
there is then evolution it can only be the evolution of the
understanding knowing itself more and more deeply, being only
that. I am only the being-principle, alone and unique without a
second.
Knowing myself to be the unique being-principle, fear has
gone away. Where could it take root? Who can make who afraid,
as I am alone? I am alone, and at the same time I live through
the form of my daughter, my son, my friends and the marvellous
Master Poonjaji. I am also the being-principle in the forms of
animals, vegetables, minerals and rocks. Master, my own Self, I
feel very deeply that at present for Nicole there is only one thing
to do in order to accomplish whatever arises in a day. Not to
forget to see myself as the one and only being-principle in all
that I touch, I see, I feel, and especially to live life myself as the
unique principle itself, seeing itself in what I still call others; and
if forgetfulness arises, not to forget that forgetfulness is also the
being-principle because other than that nothing exists. The
being-principle, emptiness, silence, now are the same. There is
no difference between them.

With my profound respect and my sincere love, Nicole.

[Very long pause]

You asked a question. You asked the question, ‘Is effort needed for
freedom?’ I gave you a reply and then I read out this letter to you. It shows
that if you want freedom, you don’t have to make any effort. If you want to
run a 100-yards race and win, you have to make a big effort. If you want to
win a gold medal like Ben Johnson, you will have to make a big effort, but
this is different

Question: Sometimes, though, I feel that I should make an effort: reading,

doing something, breathing exercises – anything.

Papaji: If breathing can produce this result, the asthmatics are ahead of you.
They breathe much harder than you.

Question: I’ve been involved in a lot of therapy groups. Lots of ‘doing’ went
on there. I did groups in which we looked inside. That required effort. I did
groups such as primal therapy, in which you are going back to find your
source.

Papaji: Looking at yourself doesn’t need any effort. First of all, who is
looking at the Self? And what is this Self that you are looking at?

Question: That’s the question. What is the Self?

Papaji: You say that you need effort while you are looking at the Self. Who
is looking at the Self? Find out who is looking. Find out who is looking at the
Self.

Question: My consciousness, my awareness.

Papaji: Yes, but what is this awareness, and how does it differ from that
which it wants to see? How does this awareness differ from what you are
going to look at? There are not two awarenesses.

Question: The awareness doesn’t differ, but it wants to be free. The

awareness wants to be free or enlightened.

Papaji: The complaint is not coming from awareness. Awareness is not

saying, ‘I want to be aware’. Awareness...
Question: ...wants to be more aware. [Laughter]

Papaji: That’s her problem, not yours. Leave it to her. Leave her alone and
watch what happens. Just watch what awareness is doing. Just watch.

Question: Sometimes it takes an effort not to make an effort.

Papaji: What do you mean?

Question: Something always wants to do something.

Papaji: Imagine you have a load of 200 pounds on your head. You are
suffering and toiling with this extremely heavy load. Is this enough weight, or
should you add some more? You want to get rid of all this weight, so you go
to a teacher and ask him what you should do.
‘This is a serious problem,’ he says. ‘Here are another twenty pounds of
apples to put on your head. This will relieve you of your problem.’
Now you have 220 pounds on your head and you are suffering even more.
You go to another teacher and tell him your problem. His solution is to
add twenty pounds of bananas to your head load. Now you are up to 240
pounds.
The next man says ‘Raisins. And maybe almonds. Put twenty pounds of
raisins and almonds on top of your head and your problems will be over.’
The different items you are being persuaded to load on your head are all
the different techniques, all the different practices you are being told to carry
out. Weight is being added on weight, but none of it is doing you any good.
But what if you decide one day to just shake your head, to tilt it a little so
that everything on top of it just falls off? Once you have decided that you no
longer want all this weight on your head, all you have to do is let it drop to
the floor. This doesn’t require any effort or years of practice, and it doesn’t
require that you join some ashram or commune. If you go to an ashram or a
commune, the first thing that will happen is that somebody will tell you that
you have to do some practice, that you have to add some more weight to the
top of your head. Nobody is going to tell you to let all the weights fall off by
themselves, because if they did that, they would all be out of business. They
would lose all their money.
I was in Washington a few years ago. I went to a pastry shop late in the
evening and picked out lots of different pastries. I thought I would take them
back to my hotel room and eat them there. When I went to the cash counter to
pay for them, I told the girl who worked there that I was planning to snack on
them in my room.
She was shocked. ‘What a pile of junk food you have collected here! You
are not supposed to eat this much junk all by yourself. You are too old to live
on a diet like this. Look at all this stuff: ice cream, pastries, jellies. Throw it
all away. It’s better to sleep on an empty stomach and have a good breakfast
tomorrow.’
I was surprised at her strong opinions. If I had told her boss that she was
telling his customers not to buy his products, she would have got herself into
trouble.
However, I took her advice and left everything in the shop. I just put it
down and left. You can accumulate things endlessly, things that will do you
no good, things that are just burdens on your head. To get rid of them, you
don’t take on new burdens, you just let go of the ones you already have.
Making an effort is easier for you because this is what you are
accustomed to. I tell you to not make an effort but you can’t accept this
advice because for millions of years you have been making efforts. You have
been trained in effort, and you want to continue in that effort because this is
all you know how to do. You come to the spiritual path and you think you
can succeed here by effort.
I am telling you not to make an effort. For freedom you don’t need to
make an effort, you just need to keep quiet. Forget everything you have
learned so far. I will tell you the way. Forget everything that you have heard
or read; forget any advice that people or prophets have been giving you.
Forget everything and look at your own Self. Forget everything that has
happened up to the present moment, and then tell me, ‘What do you lack?’ If
you forget everything, everything you have read, heard and done up till this
present moment, what’s left? May I wait for your answer?

Question: I don’t know what’s left.

Papaji: No! No! You must try to know. This is the time to know. It’s very
easy to know this.

Question: I would be in my being.

Papaji: All right. You say, ‘I would be in my being’. What effort did you
make to be in your being?

Question: It’s the biggest puzzle because I know I am in my being...

Papaji: Stop here! Stop here! ‘I know I am in my being.’ Stop at this point.
Stop here! This is the full stop. What else is there? That is the end. That is the
goal. That is the destination you have been looking for for thirty-five million
years.
My dear young boy, since you are obsessed with making efforts, I will
suggest some effort to you.

Question: Yeah, OK.

Papaji: We have arrived here without effort, forgetting everything that you
have heard, read or done. Then you said, ‘I am in my being’. Now come here
and I will give you some effort. From here, from this place of being, I want
you to try to make the effort to step out of this being. I want you to try by
your efforts to get to that place where you can say, ‘I am not in my being any
more’. Go on. Start from this being, this place you have arrived at. This is a
zone, a zone of being, that you have arrived at without making any effort.
You arrived here by forgetting everything. Now you are in this centre which
is called ‘being’. Everything is being there. You wanted to make some effort,
so I am asking you to make a tremendous effort to step out of this place and
say, ‘I am not being any more’. Do it step by step. Say, ‘I am now stepping
out of it’. Step out of it and look behind you. Is anything following you?
Don’t close your eyes. It’s effort time. Make this effort! Make this one step.
What’s a step? Lift up a foot, move it forward, and then plant it on the ground
again. Then you shout out, ‘I have planted my foot in non-being! Here is the
non-being! I am not being any more!’ Shout out to me when you plant that
foot in the place of non-being.
Question: Here is the non-being.

Papaji: Now lift the other foot. One foot is in non-being, and the other foot is
where? You are in being, so I told you to make an effort to run away from
this being. OK?

Question: It feels impossible.

Papaji: Impossible? For impossible works effort is needed. To be was

possible, and you have done it. Now, return to your natural state. Lift up a
foot and say ‘Yes’.

Question: I don’t know if I am getting this. I feel a bit stupid.

Papaji: Just do it and see. Decide for yourself, ‘I’m not being. I’m not
being.’ Decide for yourself to leave this being and look behind you. Who is
following you? Look behind you. Who is following you? Who is all around
you? What is behind you?

Question: Many things are behind me.

Papaji: No. Just as your body is a form, this is a form. Just outside of this
body, what do you see? – behind, in front, on all sides, above – what do you
see?

Question: Nothing.

Papaji: Nothing. This is called ‘being’. This is called ‘being’. Now, try to
avoid it. Avoid it now. Wherever you go, step out of this being. Step out of it
so that it doesn’t follow you. Make this effort. Look behind you and don’t
allow it to follow you. Push back the emptiness that is following you. Push it
back. You can’t.
Wherever you try to run, you are in being. Whenever you try to step out
of it, you are in being. When you try to escape from being, wherever you put
your foot down, you are still in being. You come from being and you are
always in that being. When you make the effort to pretend that you are not
being, you will suffer and you will be rewarded by death. Death is waiting for
all the beings who, through effort, think that they are not being.
 11

What comes and goes is a trap

Papaji: I was in Sant Sarovar many years ago with my sister. She was on her
way to Badrinath. When she found out I was staying in that ashram, she came
to see me and stayed for some time. Some swami was staying in the cottage
next door. He was conducting satsangs and many people were attending. I
hadn’t been to see him because in the morning, when people came to his
satsangs, I was usually walking by the Ganga, or having a bath there. My
sister went to this swami’s satsang and she told me that many other women
were going. He was, by the way, quite a well-known swami in Vrindavan. He
was young and he could sing very well, and this attracted many people,
particularly women. My sister went to see him every day for about a week.
On one of her visits the swami asked her why she had come to the ashram.
‘My brother is staying here,’ she said. ‘I have come to visit him and
spend some time with him.’
‘Why don’t you bring your brother to satsang?’ he asked.
‘I will tell him you are here and I will bring him tomorrow,’ she said.
My sister came home and said, ‘I promised the swami that I would bring
you to satsang tomorrow. You must come.’
How could I say ‘no’? I went with her and found myself in a room with
about sixty other people.
When the satsang was over, the swami asked, ‘Have you all experienced
bliss? Has everyone experienced bliss?’
Many people were calling out ‘Yes! Yes!’
He asked everyone one by one, and everyone said ‘Yes’, but when it
came to my turn I said ‘No’. He looked surprised.
‘Everyone here has said that they experienced bliss. We experienced so
much bliss in today’s satsang. You are the only one who is saying he did not
experience it. People experience bliss here every day. What is the problem?’
 I told him what the problem was. ‘Yesterday these people came here and
probably they all said that they experienced bliss, ananda. Today they came
here and again they said they experienced bliss. Where did the ananda go in
between? Where did it run away to? And what about today’s ananda? They
will walk out of this door and in a few minutes or a few hours they will say,
“The ananda has gone. It is not there any more.” That which goes away when
you walk out of the door is not here even while we are inside the room.
Ananda has not really come to any of these people. If it had been the true
ananda, it would have been there all the time. Ananda is not something that
comes and goes.’
He was quiet for a while and looked very thoughtful. Then he went inside
another room and came back with a small book. I saw him holding it, but I
didn’t bother to look at what it was.
The swami said, ‘I don’t know if this mahatma is alive or dead but he is
saying the same thing that you are saying. I read this book recently, and he
said exactly the same thing.’
Then he told me the name of the book and the name of the mahatma
whose teachings it contained.
I smiled. ‘He is my Guru. I am his disciple.’ That’s all I said.
This swami was a good man. He came down from his platform and
invited me to take his place. ‘Sit there and please tell us something about
your Guru and his teachings. This is the first time I have heard this teaching.
You are saying, “Experiences that come and go are not an experience of the
permanent state. The permanent state never comes or goes, and it is not
experienced at one time but not at another.” Please talk to us about this.’
I went to the front of the room and addressed everyone there.
‘What comes and goes is a trap. It is a trap of the mind. Mind has created
many traps for you, and these temporary bliss states are one of them. These
experiences come from your own inner desires, your own ideas of what a
spiritual experience should be. You want bliss because you think this is what
ought to happen on the spiritual path. Your mind obliges you and produces
some bliss for you to enjoy. It’s all a trap, and no one ever got enlightened by
falling for these traps. If you know that they are traps, you will not walk into
them. It is enough for you to know that anything that is temporary, anything
that comes and goes, is a trap. With this knowledge you can acquire the
discrimination that keeps you away from the transient. This rejection of what
is impermanent, irrespective of how pleasant it might be, will work against
the mind’s habits of looking for pleasure and bliss, and it will take you back
to your natural state.’
The mind likes to keep busy, you see. It will set up some goal for you,
and then it will try to accomplish it. It will make these brief bliss states your
goal, and then it will make you work hard to attain them. And then you will
think that you have accomplished something good, something spiritual. This
is just postponement. You are postponing enlightenment until next year, or
your next life.

Question: [new questioner] What’s the difference between this kind of trap,
this type of samadhi, and the bliss that you sometimes talk about, the bliss
that is natural and automatic? When I am drawn inside, there is an automatic
inwardness that pulls me in, and there the mind gets very peaceful. It feels
very single-pointed and very calm. I know that everyone here experiences
something like this in your presence, though not necessarily all the time. So
my question is, ‘What is the difference between the samadhis of bliss that
one strives for and the bliss and peace that we seem to feel quite naturally in
your presence?’

Papaji: The peace that you feel is the result of not doing anything. That is the
difference.

Question: That’s true. That’s right.

Papaji: By not doing anything, by not striving to attain anything. It’s the
result of an instant, a moment, in which you decide to relieve yourself of all
your activity. At that time, in that moment, you have peace and happiness.
This is the moment that gives you happiness.
How does the feeling of happiness normally come to you? It comes in the
moment that some particular desire has been fulfilled.
You say, ‘I want the latest model Mercedes because my neighbour has
just booked one. I also want a new apartment facing the beach. These are the
things that will make me happy. I want them.’
 You set to work to fulfil your desires. You get a loan from the bank and
some help from your friends. Everyone joins in with your new enthusiasm.
Your wife wants a new car; your children want a new car; everyone wants the
new model car. By now you are convinced that you will never be happy with
your old Ford. The new car eventually appears and you park it on the street
where everyone can admire it. Everyone is happy when they see the new car
in front of your house.
This process is the same one that yogis go through to attain bliss, except
that the desires and the goals are different. There is a desire to experience a
blissful state; they work hard to attain it through their various yogic practices;
a blissful experience results, and when they come out of it, they feel very
pleased with themselves because they have attained the object of their desire.
Now, where did this happiness come from? The experiencer remained the
same before, during and after the experience. Nothing has changed there. The
car is made of steel, rubber, and so on. There is no happiness that is built into
the machine, a happiness that becomes yours when you buy all this metal and
rubber. What has really happened? How did the acquisition of this new car
produce a feeling of happiness within you?
In the beginning you were troubled by a desire to have a new car. This
desire nagged at you and troubled you all the time you were working to
collect the money to buy one. But when you took possession of the car, you
suddenly felt happy. Why? It was because the desire to obtain a new car was
no longer there. It was the sudden absence of desire that made you happy, not
the acquisition of a new possession.
When desire is no longer there, you are happy. When desire has ceased to
exist completely, you are happy all the time, and this is liberation. Liberation
is not the result of your meditations, of your visits to pilgrimage places. It
doesn’t come from going into caves in the mountains, from giving to
charities, or from reading the sutras. So long as desire is there, samsara is
there. So long as desire is there, suffering is there. Everyone can see this in
his daily life.
Who is happy in the waking state? I believe the answer to that question is
‘no one’. The kings and the millionaires have everything but they are not
happy. From the richest man down to the poorest no one is happy because
there is not a single man whom this serpent desire has not bitten. This desire
is a serpent, and there is no one who has escaped her bite.
Consider your waking state. If it is such a good, restful and peaceful state,
why do you reject it so readily to go to sleep? Why reject it if it is such a
good state? Everyone needs to sleep because the desires of the day have tired
us out. The mind needs a rest at the end of every period of waking because its
busyness has worn you out. Everyone feels happy and peaceful during that
state of sleep. There is happiness and peace there because the mind is no
longer bothering you. There are no mental transactions there, just the
contentment that comes from not having any nagging desires. Because there
are no transactions there between subject and object, mind and phenomena,
you feel rest. When there is no subject-object division, there is peace and rest.
Even in the state of samadhi there is a subtle transaction going on
between a subject and an object: the subject who is meditating and the object
that is being meditated on. This relationship must be there. I, the meditator,
am one entity, the subject, and the object of meditation is something else.
To get rid of this subject-object relationship, why not begin to question
who the meditator is? Find out who the meditator is, and find out why it
needs to meditate. This is moving in the opposite direction. Instead of
moving downstream with the mind by connecting to an object that you
experience, move upstream to find the source. Don’t go with the flow. Go in
the opposite direction, upstream, and find out who the meditator is. Perhaps
you will find the answer that will settle your accounts here and now. But this
decision, the decision to go upstream to the source, doesn’t come to most
people. Whatever you do, you never question who is the doer of your actions,
the one who performs meditation. When you enjoy, you get lost in the
enjoyment, but you never question who is experiencing the enjoyment in that
moment. Everyone attributes the enjoyment to the object that is being
enjoyed – such as the new car – which is transient, not permanent. This is
how samsara comes into being. We never attribute the happiness or the bliss
to the person who is experiencing it. We only attribute it to the object he is
enjoying.
You only experience enjoyment of objects in the waking state. But it
doesn’t matter how much enjoyment you are getting from these waking-state
objects, you always reject them when you go to sleep. The most beautiful
experience may be there in the waking state; the most beautiful person, the
one who is most dear to you may be there in the waking state, but you will
reject them all when you go to sleep. You go to sleep alone, without
experiences, without the people who are most dear to you, and in that state
you have peace, having forgotten everything that came before. To have true
peace, you have to be alone, separated from everything you love and enjoy as
separate objects. The happiness and the peace you experience in this state
cannot be attributed to anything perishable. This bliss, the bliss that does not
depend on enjoying an object or an experience, is imperishable, permanent.
No matter what else is destroyed, this will remain. Nobody knows where this
happiness is because everyone is looking for it in the wrong place.
All beings need to be happy. All beings are looking for happiness, but no
one knows where it is. Men, birds, animals, and even plants are looking for
this elusive happiness because it is their fundamental nature to be happy. No
one wants to be in suffering. Even the land itself, the earth we walk on, wants
happiness and doesn’t want to suffer. The bird doesn’t like to be injured, and
nor does the animal. All are seeking this elusive happiness, but where is it to
be found?
I was speaking earlier of traps, of traps of the mind. Happiness is not to
be found in any of these traps of the mind. It is to be found when the mind is
absent, and one day you will all know it. Everyone gets a taste of this, an
experience of it, when he goes to sleep. When sleep comes everything
vanishes, but you remain, alone and at peace. When you wake up you say,
‘Oh, I had a very good sleep. I was very happy and content. I didn’t even
dream.’
This sleep state is just one of the three dull alternating states. It is not the
final state of freedom or liberation, but it is a state in which the mind activity
and objects have vanished. The sleep experience should teach you that when
the mind stops transacting its business, peace prevails. When the mind stops
jumping outwards to objects and desires in the waking state, you have peace
and freedom with full awareness. This is the highest, transcendent state.
How can it be attained? Some people have done it. Many people have
tried to attain it through yoga, samadhi, meditation and so on, but who gets
permanent results?
It can be done, though. The means is not important, what is important is
the result. It can be done.
Question: You have said that samadhi is the trap for the yogi, and that the
rosary is the trap for the bhakta. What other traps are there for the devotee? I
have heard you talk about devotees not being ‘unsmelled flowers’, and that
this prevents them from reaching the goal. Is this another trap?

Papaji: The ‘unsmelled flower’ is not a trap. It is a different analogy. The

unsmelled flower means a mind that doesn’t have a single thought. That state
will work for you. It is complete in itself. It is enlightenment, and you don’t
need anything else.
‘How to tackle the mind?’ This has been the topic of this morning. Mind
in its thought-free purity is the unsmelled flower. Only the unsmelled flower
can be offered to God and be accepted by him. When you bring in thoughts
and concepts, your mind is no longer ‘unsmelled’. It is no longer a pure
offering for God.
A devotee who wants to see God starts counting the beads on his rosary.
The hands are moving the beads while the mind is moving around through all
the sense-objects that it is encountering. The mind is somewhere else while
this is going on. It is not quiet and it is not controlled. The problem of the
mind has not been tackled and solved.
The thought comes, ‘I have to meditate’. When this thought, this
intention, comes, the flower of the mind gets smelled. When you think ‘I
have to meditate’, you enter a routine, something that you may continue with
for your whole life, and while you are following this routine you forget the
original purpose of finding freedom. You forget it altogether. I have seen
many people who are like this. They engage in meditation, prayer and various
rituals, but they forget the ultimate purpose of these rituals.
I say, ‘If there is no thought in the mind, who are you in that moment?’ If
you don’t give rise to a thought, if you don’t stir a single thought from the
ground itself, from the source itself, who are you in that instant? Don’t let a
single thought stir and see who you are. Don’t think, ‘I have to meditate’, or
‘I have to perform this ritual’. If a thought does arise, investigate it. Find out
where it has come from. If you do this intently, this thought will vanish. If
you do this properly, when this thought vanishes, all will be over. When this
thought vanishes, all ideas such as ‘I have to meditate’ and ‘I have to perform
this ritual’ will vanish along with it. You are in the source. You are the
source. This investigation will take you to the source where the thought will
disappear. Any other thought, any other practice, will take you away from the
source, to somewhere else. You will hold it, and continue to hold it forever.
You will get attached to this thought, this method, and you will hold onto it
forever. This is what is happening in all the monasteries. It is what is
happening every day with all the people who are attached to practices. These
attachments don’t produce results. There is just an attachment to the method
while the purpose – freedom – is lost sight of.
Our true purpose is realisation of the Self, enlightenment, the freedom of
being the Self. If you start off by thinking ‘I must attain Self-realisation
because I am not realised right now, and I want to be’, then you are
immediately imposing on yourself the thought of bondage. Your quest for
freedom has already been caught up in this idea that it is something you don’t
already have. You accept this thought, ‘I am in bondage’, and then you go
looking for a method or a book or a teacher who can help you to remove this
idea of bondage that you have just imposed on yourself.
No book will get rid of this idea for you. First of all, ask yourself, ‘Who
told me that I am in bondage?’ Where is the bondage? Question the bondage
itself. Question the bondage by investigating who it is who appears to be in
bondage. ‘Who is bound?’ Ask this question of yourself and it will take you
to the place where the concept of bondage came into existence. It will take
you to a place that no book and no teacher can tell you about.
All you have to do is remove this impediment, this idea that there is
someone who is bound and who needs to work hard to transcend this
bondage. Instead of working hard to find light or wisdom, find out what this
impediment is, this idea ‘I am bound’ that puts you on the spiritual path in the
first place.
‘I am bound’ is the mental substratum on which are built all your ideas
about enlightenment and spiritual practice. You take your stand on this
substratum and from there you develop and follow all your methods and
practices. If you don’t remove this initial impediment, the idea ‘I am bound,’
your practices will continue forever.
Spend some time on investigating this idea ‘I am bound’. Work on this.

Question: It doesn’t seem to me that this initial idea of being in bondage is

something I impose on myself. As a person lives his life, he starts looking at
what he is doing, and he eventually gets dissatisfied with it. The sense of
limitation is already there, and from this there arises the thought, ‘Is it
possible to not be limited?’

Papaji: You borrow this limitation from someone else. It is a borrowed

thought, one that other people keep giving you and imposing on you. Right
from the beginning of your life you are indirectly told about your limitations.
When you are very young your mother tells you, ‘I am your mother, and this
is your father’. Later your parents will say, ‘These are your relations, and this
is the religion you have to believe in’. All these ideas are given to you, and
you accept them all unthinkingly.

Question: Yes, people say, ‘You are like this’ and ‘You are like that’.

Papaji: Limitations start and the innocent child quietly accepts them. First
your parents indoctrinate you, then your priests and then society in general.
These limitations that you accept for yourself come to you from different
sources. You have not learned the truth for yourself, so you have been
accepting the opinions of other people.
Some people, the truly sane ones, will find the time to question all these
ideas, all these limitations that other people are trying to impose.
Such a person will say, ‘I want to be free. From whom did I get these
limitations, these ideas?’ He will push away these superimposed limitations,
and he will see his true nature. This is the process.
 12

The knowledge ‘I am free’ is a fire that burns up

any thoughts that approach

Question: Sometimes I know I am free, and I live that way, but at other times
I just feel worried and tired. I am afraid of being hurt or sick. I feel I am
lacking something, and I forget who I really am. Is there going to be a time
when I live permanently in a state of real knowing?

Papaji: You said ‘sometimes’. Sometimes you feel free and sometimes you
don’t. That’s what you said. So what happens? Who steals away this
freedom? Who takes it away from you? It must be some thought that enters
into this freedom. That thought trespasses on your freedom, catches you, and
takes you away into your past. If you are careful, if you are vigilant, you can
prevent these trespassers from distracting you.
Everyone has moments of uncaused happiness and peace during their
lives. They may only last for a few seconds or a few minutes, but everyone
knows what I am talking about. One feels free; one is content; there is no
suffering; thought is absent. At that time one must be very alert, very awake;
one must be aware that thought will try to make an encroachment on your
peace. Most people do not maintain this alert awareness and they are robbed
of their peace. If a thought comes and manages to rob you, it shows that you
were asleep when the robber came. If you always keep aware and alert,
nothing can disturb you or rob you of your peace.
When you are truly aware, no thought can even enter and trespass on your
freedom because that ultimate state of awareness is a fire, a fire of
knowledge. Anything that tries to enter that fire is consumed and burnt to
ashes. The knowledge ‘I am free’ is a fire that burns up any thoughts that
approach.
‘I am free’ means ‘I am free of the thought process that jumps around and
connects to objects’. In this state nothing can impinge on your freedom or
trespass on your peace.
This is a habit that no one has told you about. No one has tried to impose
this one on you. It is something that you have to acquire for yourself. For the
first time in your life, for the first time in thirty-five million years of repeated
incarnations, you have the chance to acquire this habit. Everybody is asleep.
Everybody is being robbed of their peace millions of times, but no one wakes
up and apprehends the thief.
These robbers give you the endless trouble of birth, suffering and death,
but if you are vigilant and keep them out, even Yama, the Lord of Death, will
have to give up and leave you alone. If you are simply aware, watchful and
alert, nothing can disturb you. Did you listen to the letter from that French
girl Nicole that I read out? She spoke of a trick that I like very much. Listen
to this:

Master, my own Self, I feel very deeply that at present for Nicole
there is only one thing to do in order to accomplish whatever
arises in a day. Not to forget to see myself as the one and only
being-principle in all that I touch, I see, I feel, and especially to
live life myself as the unique principle itself, seeing itself in what
I still call others; and if forgetfulness arises, not to forget that
forgetfulness is also the being-principle because other than that
nothing exists.

Do you get it? This is the result. This is exceptional.

Question: I understand it, but sometimes it’s so hard to live it.

Papaji: It looks hard because the people around you are all behaving
differently. You have also behaved like them for all of your life. To live a life
that is simple, natural and spontaneous, how can it be hard? It only looks hard
because everyone is trying to live life differently. It is, in fact, the easiest way
to live because it’s your own nature. It may be hard in the beginning because
no one in your community lives like this. They are all sailing in the same boat
together, going in another direction. You have to stop following what other
people are doing and walk your own path. Your path will be the solitary way
of the razor’s edge, not the path of the crowd. Take up this path if you want
to. If you don’t like it, go with the crowd in their boat. There is no pressure
from me on this. You can do as you like. No pressure, no compulsion, no
requirements. Whatever you feel is beneficial, whatever you think is wise, do
it and see what happens. If you then discover that you like this alternative
way of living, then follow it. This way, it will be your decision. If you do
follow this path, you will stand alone and you may end up fighting the world,
but sooner or later the world will follow you. But in the beginning nobody
will like what you are doing. Many people have faced this dilemma, and
many of them have got into trouble by choosing a different way, a different
path. They have been put on the cross for telling the truth. They have been
stoned to death for telling the truth. What was their crime? Only telling
people what is the correct way to live. They spoke in the market place about
truth and were given poison to drink. Or they were executed on a cross or
stoned to death. They just spoke the truth, but telling this truth in public is a
very rare event. Most people will not listen to what they have to say, and for
these people, samsara will continue.
The thought ‘I have to liberate myself’ never comes to most people. This
thought never even enters the mind. If such a thought does arise in the mind
of one person, a hundred thousand people will come along and try to
discourage him from doing anything about it. This man will probably end up
listening to them because he doesn’t dare to go it alone.
 13

Whatever you experience, reject it

Question: We were talking yesterday about being trapped. You mentioned

the yogi getting trapped in samadhi, the bhakta in his rosary, and so on. You
also said that community was a trap.

Papaji: Yes, all those traps we mentioned yesterday were external.

Question: Right.

Papaji: I remember what we discussed. The rosary, reading books, following

different methods, and so on. Today, let us deal with internal traps. These
things we talked about yesterday are all external traps. Let us talk about the
internal ones.
What are they? There are five internal traps. Number one is the body;
identification with the body made out of food [annamayakosa]. Then the vital
body [pranamayakosa], the body made up of the vital breath, the prana. This
one is inside, isn’t it? Then there is the mental body, the mind
[manomayakosa]. Next there is the sheath of the intellect, the intellectual
body [vijnanamayakosa]. Finally, there is the bliss body [anandamayakosa].
In this body there is an attachment to bliss. All of these so-called bodies,
these sheaths that the ‘I’ functions through, are traps. Freedom is beyond
external traps. These are internal traps. People say ‘I am the body’, or ‘I am
the vital breath’, or ‘I am the mind’, or ‘I am the intellect’, or ‘I am bliss’. We
have to cross beyond all these internal identifications before we can face
freedom. External and internal traps both have to go.

Question: You are describing how we end up identifying with one of these
bodies. I feel there is a self-consciousness inside me. Is this identification
with a ‘self’ one of these internal traps? You have been telling me lately to
understand the ‘I’-thought. I have been looking and getting very quiet with it.
Yesterday, though, you told me to ask ‘Who is in bondage?’

Papaji: Yes, this ‘I’-thought is the primal thought. It is from this that
everything starts. From here bondage starts; from here ignorance starts; from
here samsara starts. When you come to this ‘I’-thought and concentrate on it,
you return to the source of thought, and there thought itself vanishes.

Question: Is it useful to isolate the ‘I’-thought by rejecting, one by one, all

the things that it associates and identifies with?

Papaji: Whatever you experience, reject it. Wherever you find yourself,
reject that place. Whatever you perceive, conceive or see, reject them all as
‘not this, not this’. Separate yourself from all these things. In the end you will
arrive somewhere, at some knowledge, at a knowledge that cannot be
rejected. You will be very stupid if you try to reject this knowledge because it
is truth itself. Through ordinary discriminative knowledge you can reject all
the things that you are not, but then you will end up with a knowledge that
cannot be rejected. You have to face that knowledge which can never be left
or discarded. That is your reality.
Reject all the things that you identify with one by one. ‘I am not the
physical body. I am not the mental body. I am not the intellectual body. I am
not the blissful body.’ When all these identifications are no longer there, the
‘I’ itself will vanish because it only remains as an entity that is relative to
another entity. Finally, the individual ‘I’ will remain unassociated with
anything else, and then it will vanish. And duality will go with it. Where this
‘I’ vanishes, in that place true knowledge arises.

Question: [new questioner] That ‘I’ can’t exist by itself, can it? That ‘I’ can’t
exist alone.

Papaji: No. It can’t exist except in association with other things.

Question: I’ve been waking up in the morning, some mornings anyway, and
watching the ‘I’. I watch myself grab an object. I watch the mind latch onto
an object. It seems to need to do this to stay alive. Some mornings, though,
there’s a sense of space all around me, a quiet space, but then the mind just
grabs at that space, that quietness and makes an object out of it. It wants to
objectify the quiet space and the silence.

Papaji: Yes, that’s how it manifests everything. This is how manifestation

takes place every day. When you question this ‘I’, manifestation will end,
along with ‘I’ itself. Then something else will remain, something that was a
witness not only to all the manifestation but also to the dissolution of the ‘I’.

Question: Sometimes there is a phase in which there has been an awareness

of the individual self-consciousness rising and falling. There’s just the
awareness of it. At other times it seems that the sense of self-consciousness is
the perceiver itself, rather than that which is perceived by self-consciousness.
Do you follow what I am trying to say? There have been times when I have
actually just been watching self-consciousness.

Papaji: Watching?

Question: Murray’s consciousness.

Papaji: How can consciousness watch consciousness? How can it?

Question: By consciousness I mean Murray, the mind of Murray, grasping.

Papaji: This is the individual ego then.

Question: Sometimes there is just an awareness of ego, but at other times

there is the feeling of being the ego, of being the perceiver.

Papaji: When you are seeing everything – ‘I am conscious of this’ – this is

the ego consciousness, not consciousness itself. When you are aware that this
is the ego, then this ego will vanish. This is the nature of the ego. Then you
will be something else; you will be the witness of the ego. It is there that I am
taking you. Beyond the five kosas, which are the five inner traps. That is the
place you need to find. Even when you just begin to look, you will start to
experience enjoyment. That place is in everything.

Question: [new questioner] Is it that the ego vanishes, or does it just lose its
importance?

Papaji: It has no importance if it is there or not there.

Question: But it’s still there?

Papaji: If you are aware, if you are aware that it is there and that it will not
harm you, then let it be there also. When you can use the word ‘I’ – ‘I will do
this’, ‘I love that’ – knowing what this ‘I’ truly is, you can use it and it can be
allowed to stay. A tiger is dangerous in the forest, isn’t it? But the same tiger
in a circus obeys its master. The master points his finger: ‘Stand up!’ ‘Sit
down!’ ‘Sit on the chair!’ and the tiger meekly obeys. It is the same with the
ego, if it is a tamed ego. The tiger in the wilderness can be a dangerous man-
eater, but the tiger in the circus is just there for fun, for amusement.

Question: [new questioner] Sometimes when awareness is there I get the

feeling that the ego is resisting it. That the ego likes to see what it can do to
test awareness. There can be quietness for a while, but then the ego will come
along and say, ‘Come on, give me some entertainment, some stimulation’.

Papaji: That is how you have trained yourself. That is how you have trained
your ego. You have trained it to do things and want things.
I had the opposite problem when I was young. I wanted to go inwards and
enjoy the peace and happiness that was always there, but the people around
me didn’t like me doing this, so I had to teach myself to go outwards and
become interested in the things of the world. I had to expend a lot of effort to
make the mind go outwards and get attached to things. Even then, I was not
able to do it very well. If I had any practice at all when I was young, it was
the practice of trying to be attached to the world. I forced my mind to develop
an interest in these things because it only had an interest in going within. I
don’t know what happens with other people, but I do know that the mind
automatically follows its own interests. My interest was to fall into this inner
happiness and stay there.
Don’t find fault with your mind or your senses. They are just moving
towards whatever interests them the most. The senses and the ego will flow
towards your attachments. To make them move in a different direction, you
have to give up these attachments.
I was attached to going within, to falling into states of bliss all the time.
The people around me didn’t like this so I started to practise not being in
peace, not being in happiness. It was very hard work.
When I was in the army, I was so happy and blissful, my superior officer
thought I was drunk all the time. He told my servant not to give me more than
two drinks a day, but my servant replied, ‘He doesn’t drink at all’. I wanted
to behave well, but my mind never listened to me. It was too attached to these
bliss states. How could I do what people wanted me to do? My mind was
never out of this happiness that was always pulling me inside.
I never meditated, and I never did any spiritual practice. When you
people meditate, you sit and close your eyes because you think that this will
help your meditation. I close my eyes and sit as well, since that is what
everyone else here is doing, but I am not really meditating.
To know yourself you don’t actually need to control the mind, and you
don’t need to sit in meditation. Nor do you need any books. To return to the
Self, why should you need a map? No map is needed, no book is needed, no
track needs to be followed. If you want to go somewhere else other than the
Self, you will need a map. To be as you are, to stay as you are, why should
you need a map or a guide? You are already there. What exercise is going to
bring you any nearer? What sadhana? What bodhi tree do you need to sit
under?
 14

Nobody is a seeker after liberation because nobody

exists

Question: Last night I was sitting outside a temple, the Hanuman Temple in
Aminabad. I was just sitting quietly. It was night time, and I was just looking
at the market. I find these Indian scenes are very intense for me. Suddenly I
felt my mind, my American mind, breaking. I suddenly saw that you cannot
use the mind to understand the mind. Up till now I have always been using
the mind to understand the mind, but I suddenly saw that it can’t. I saw that
this couldn’t be done. I felt that the mind was just a little cloud on top of me.
I was separate from it, and it somehow felt very clean. But the whole process
was also a little strange.

Papaji: Yes, it’s a monkey temple. Mind is a monkey, so this is a temple of

the mind [laughter]. Hanuman is the symbol of the mind. The monkey has
the same habits as the mind, but at least it has a tail to balance with. If you
have a tail, it’s all right. You can control your movements. You can jump
from branch to branch without falling off. A mind that is balanced is a trained
mind. It knows that its true nature is consciousness, and that gives it the
balance to move well. If the monkey mind knows that its true nature is
consciousness, that the mind is consciousness itself, there will be no problem.
The balance will be there.
Hanuman, the mind, knows that he is one with Ram, consciousness, the
reality. That is his secret. When mind knows that, all will be well. The ten-
headed Ravana signifies multiple and uncontrolled desires. The power of
consciousness, the power of a mind that is united with consciousness, can
destroy the kingdom of desires and its ruler. This is the meaning of the story
of the Ramayana.
There is another Hanuman temple down by the River Gomti. It’s nice
there as well. There is a statue of Neem Karoli Baba in that one. He used to
visit the old temple that was there before. During a flood that old temple was
submerged and destroyed, so the government has made this new one.

Question: [new questioner] Why am I so affected when I visit these

Hanuman temples? I went with Andy to the one in Aminabad last night.
Every time I go there I feel a strong devotional bliss. I don’t know why
because I don’t feel that I have much of a connection with Hanuman. I’m not
like Bihari [Ram Charan] or Ram Dass in that I don’t feel devoted to
Hanuman, but I still experience this ananda when I go there. Why do some
places affect me like this, apparently for no reason?

Papaji: There are some places that the mind is attuned to.

Question: You say sometimes that bliss is a trap. How does one go beyond
bliss? How does one escape the trap? How does one go beyond bliss so that it
doesn’t become a trap?

Papaji: Unless you have enjoyed bliss, how can you reject it? There must be
bliss all around you; you must be drowning in bliss so that you become
allergic to it. [laughter] Only then can you decide ‘I want something better
than this’. Unless you have had money, how can the idea come to you that it
is better not to have money? It is only when you have a surplus and when you
see that the surplus is not doing you any good that you feel you want to give
it up. If you have a lot of money, you can see how you get attached to it, and
how much trouble it can cause you in the long run. It is the same with bliss.

Question: When the bliss is there, it seems that there is also equanimity of
mind. The mind seems to be quiet and balanced. That’s a hard thing to want
to give up.

Papaji: Mind is, no doubt, very happy when it is in bliss. It is very difficult
to cross this barrier. Very difficult. Even some saints don’t get past this point.
It is said by some that Brahmananda [the bliss of Brahman] is the highest
state, but there are others who feel that there is something beyond even this.
This ananda can be a very nice experience, and many people settle for it, but
when you know there is an ultimate truth beyond it, you should not stay in it.
Question: [new questioner] Is there still an experiencer who is in bliss? Do
you have to move on because there is still an experiencer?

Papaji: An experiencer must be there. That relationship will be there: the

experiencer and the object experienced. To transcend that duality, the
prescription is to go beyond it.

Question: But for this to happen, the ‘I’ itself has to go. One has to reach the
state where the ‘I’ is not there.

Papaji: Nobody can stay in bliss, but it is a rare one who can reject this bliss.
The aim of man, of all beings, is happiness, so it is hard to give up states like
these.

Question: [new questioner] Papaji, you say that we have to reject these
states. For me this is difficult to grasp. If I reject something, I reject it with
my mind. I can reject one of these five traps of the mind that you were talking
about, but the mind that is doing the rejecting, the ‘I’, must still be there for
this rejection to take place.

Papaji: This is from the perspective of the mind. There is another

perspective. Do you know the story of the tenth man? Ten men crossed a fast-
flowing river. When they reached the other side, one of them counted all the
others to make sure that everyone had survived the crossing. He counted
them all but omitted to count himself.
‘One of us has drowned!’ he cried out. ‘One of us has drowned!’
The other nine went through the same exercise, and all of them made the
same mistake of failing to count themselves, so all of them became convinced
that one of their party had drowned. They started crying and weeping because
they were all convinced that one of their friends had died.
Some passerby came up to them and said, ‘Why are you crying? What is
the problem?’
He was told that they were all grieving because they had lost a member of
their party. When it was explained to him how they had reached this
conclusion, the new man lined up all the ten travellers and counted them, and
as he did so he made them all call out the numbers one by one. As the tenth
man called out ‘ten’, they all realised that no one had drowned, that they had
all been there all the time, and that their suffering and weeping had been
based on an ignorant assumption. Usually, this story is told to drive home the
point that when one discovers the Self, one is not attaining something new.
One is merely giving up the suffering that was based on the wrong idea that
something was missing.
Your ideas of spiritual practice – the idea that I must reject this or that –
are also based on an ignorant assumption, the assumption that there is a doer,
a meditator, who must do something in order to find something and
experience it. You suffer and you meditate endlessly because you never
address this erroneous assumption. The ten men in the story ran around
weeping, saying, ‘One of us is missing! One of us is missing!’ You run
around thinking, ‘I must do something! I must do something!’
Who has to do something? Who is meditating? Instead of looking for
results by meditating or rejecting attachments, just look towards the one who
is meditating. Find out who he really is and then everything will stop.

Question: In pure awareness is there just the knowledge that one is not the
surface wave but the underlying ocean?

Papaji: One knows that one is also the waves.

Question: Also the waves?

Papaji: Yes, everything. The wave thinks that it is different from all the other
waves. It says, ‘I have a name, a shape, I have movement in a particular
direction’. The ocean, knowing that all the water is itself, just enjoys the
dance.
The waves can think, ‘I am independent; I have many friends in front of
me and behind me; we are all moving along together’.
The waves might even decide to have a satsang. They may get together
and say, ‘Let us go off together to find the ocean. Let us meditate together
and try to find out where the ocean is. I have heard it is very wonderful
there.’
So, they travel along, looking for the ocean, and hoping that they will one
day find it.
The ocean doesn’t know anything about this. It just knows that the still,
silent depths and the froth on the surface are all itself.

Question: I used to get afraid. I thought that the unhappiness I felt was due to
the wrong identification with the waves. Now I am beginning to understand
that bliss arises when the wave identifies itself with the ocean.

Papaji: Yes.

Question: I am beginning to understand that bliss is there when the

individual, the wave, identifies with the larger entity, the ocean. That means
that when ocean just knows itself as ocean there is no longer the bliss that
comes from ‘I am experiencing myself to be the great ocean’. Is this correct?

Papaji: Yes.

Question: I find this hard to grasp. In fact I cannot grasp it at all. This state in
which there is neither experiencer nor experience. If I am just ocean, is there
no experience, no happiness at all?

Papaji: The truth is, there is neither ocean nor wave. No name, no form: that
is where you find the truth. You are not the ocean because the ocean is just a
name. No name and no form is the ultimate truth. Where there is a name and
a form there is falsehood.

Question: So name and form arise from awareness? And without awareness
there can be no name and no form?

Papaji: Name and form are false. Where there is a name and a form there is
falsehood. There is no truth in them because they are both perishable.
Wherever there is a form, there is something that is going to perish. All forms
have to perish, but if I talk like this too much, you will all run away. You will
all run away because you want something to hold onto. You will run away
into meditation. That’s a good trap for you, because there you can have your
association, your identification, and still think that you are doing something
spiritual.
 I tell you, ‘No one is bound. There is no bondage. Nobody is a seeker
after liberation because nobody exists. Even liberation does not exist. Who
are you? Who is the one who is going to meditate?’
Now what are you going to do with this information? What can you do?
Meditation, levitation – these things you can do and know, but how can
you do and know what I am talking about because there is no one there either
to do or know?
Last year a Zen teacher came from Tokyo to Hardwar to see me. He
didn’t even go to his room to unpack. He brought his bag with him and sat
down in front of me. This was last year, in June. Somebody had given him
my name. He made a very elaborate Japanese bow and sat down.
He addressed me and said, ‘You are Rama and I am the demon. Kill this
demon.’
I looked at him and said, ‘I have killed both of them’.
That was enough for him. He understood.
He prostrated again and said, ‘I can leave now. I am going back to Japan.’
I said, ‘No, no, you have only just arrived. You must stay a bit longer.’
‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘you are a very dangerous man. If I stay, I will fall in
love with you. That’s why I have to leave.’
And he left.
 15

You have forgotten the purpose for which you

incarnated

Papaji: All the prophets have said, ‘You are a sinner. When you are happy,
you are actually sinning.’
They address you like this and you accept it. You have accepted it
completely. But if someone says to you, ‘You are free’, you don’t believe it
because you have been conditioned for so long into believing that you are a
sinner. This idea of sin is now in your genes, in every drop of blood in your
body. It pervades you completely. Generation after generation you have been
listening to various people say that you are a sinner. You have believed all
these people, and for generation after generation you have been working to
free yourself of these sins.
If somebody now says, ‘You are free. You have always been free and you
have never been bound,’ you are not going to listen to him.
So, the teachers start by saying, ‘Yes, you are bound. You have karma
and you have to meditate. Join some ashram and meditate so that you can get
rid of these defects.’
It’s only foolish people, though, who talk like this. It is not wisdom to be
told that you are a sinner and that you are bound. Who is bound? Where is
this bondage? No one ever sees it, but everyone believes in it. This idea puts
you in the traps, which are all the methods that are given to you to escape
from this bondage.
I am not going to tell you that you are bound. Instead, I am going to take
you to the place where you will know there is no bondage. There you will
scratch your head in a puzzled way because there is nothing for you to do
there. There you have no relationships and no identifications.
There are clothes on your body. You are wearing them, but they are not
you. They are your belongings, but they are not you. When you say ‘My
clothes’, you know that the clothes belong to you, but are not you. When you
say, ‘My body, my mind, my intellect’, and so on, have the same
understanding. Know that they are your belongings, not who you are. You,
the owner of them, are different from them. When you say, ‘My mind is
happy’, or ‘My mind is not happy’, you are implying an owner of the mind.
Who is this owner? To whom does this mind belong? This is what you have
to find out. It’s not hard. It’s very easy to work out.

Question: [new questioner] Is the awareness you talk about the same as
innocence? This child-like quality of innocence that we value so much?

Papaji: Yes, I believe so. You have to be innocent. A free man is always
innocent. He is childlike. Like Socrates. All these people who were free, they
were, first of all, very innocent. They speak the truth from that place of
innocence.

Question: [new questioner] I think it is hard for me to say ‘I am free, and I

have been free all along’ because I am too proud to admit that I have been
stupid for so long. That seems to indicate a lack of innocence. How can I be
more innocent?

Papaji: Innocence is your inherent nature. Cleverness is something you have

acquired. You have acquired your cleverness from your parents, from your
society and from your religion. They all make you so clever, you end up
forgetting your innocence. You were born innocent. You never noticed any
differences between your own people and the neighbours. You were loving
everyone, and everyone loved you. People loved you so much, they came up
to you and kissed you and gave you chocolate.
As you slowly grew up, all this changed. You learned to be clever; you
lost your innocent nature; you even lost God. And that’s when your suffering
started. Now, you have acquired all this cleverness. You have discovered
cheating and deception. You see differences between one man and the next
and make negative judgements.
Who told you about all these things? When you were a young child, you
didn’t see any differences between your family and the neighbours, between
one country and another, between one religion and another. You didn’t see
differences in those days. Look at the children who come here and play. They
still have it. You can see it in them. But you have lost your innocence
because of the society you live in, the parents and the priests who told you
things that are not true. Now you want to return to your original innocence.
You are not going to gain anything new, are you? You are just going to return
back to your original innocence. When you give up all the things that have
made you clever, you will go back to your own nature, your own state. That’s
what we call freedom. This freedom is ‘freedom from’. You are free of
everything you have acquired, everything that you have learned, everything
that you have known, everything that you have read, everything that you have
heard.
Innocence will come back to you if you don’t impose any of these things
on yourself. Just keep quiet. Don’t have any expectation whatsoever. Don’t
even have the expectation of freedom, or realisation. Don’t expect anything
and innocence will show up by itself. Your nature will reveal itself once all
this camouflage has been dropped. All you have to do is remove the
impediments.
Just sit down. Allow your true nature to show up and reveal itself. You
don’t do this by making any effort, because when you are making an effort
you are holding onto something. Clinging to it. Effort means clinging. Just
stay very quiet and very still. All things will leave you and innocence will
reveal itself. It’s a revelation that will reveal itself to itself by itself. It will
reveal itself when you are prepared for it.
What is this revelation? Leave it alone. Don’t think about it. Just keep
quiet and don’t do anything. This is the requirement that has to be fulfilled.
The circumstances under which this will happen will present themselves to
you if you have the merit and the good luck. If the previous merits, the
punyas, are right, this will happen. If the punyas are there, the jiva will come
to good parents, to a good family. It will grow up and at some point it will be
prompted by these old punyas to ask, ‘I want freedom’. When all these things
come together, you will be helpless to resist. You will move from place to
place, seeking this elusive freedom. This desire for freedom will trouble you,
and you will not be allowed to rest without attempting to fulfil it. You will
not be distracted by any attachments, by any kind of luxury. Kingdoms may
be offered to you, but you will reject them. Buddha was given all these things
and he rejected them all because he had the punyas and circumstances to
attain freedom. And what circumstances! Good mother, good parentage, good
circumstances, and an unquenchable desire to find the truth. Having these
things in this life depends on the merits you have earned in previous lives.
But all are moving in that direction. Everybody, all jivas, are returning home.
There’s no doubt about that. On the way, though, many of them get distracted
by other things.

Question: Jiva. What exactly do you mean by jiva?

Papaji: The jiva is the soul, the transmigrating soul that travels from one
incarnation to another before it returns home.

Question: [new questioner] Isn’t this also an illusion?

Papaji: You will know this afterwards, but not in the beginning. In the snake
and the rope analogy, you see a rope and imagine that it is a snake. But you
don’t discover that you have been imagining this until you get closer and
realise that the snake is non-existent, that you just imagined it by
superimposing an untrue idea on a piece of rope. While you think it is real, it
will give you fear and suffering.
All jivas are going home to the Self, but because they imagine themselves
to be real, separate entities, they forget about going home and get distracted
by other things.
There was once a king who had no children. Since he was getting old and
had no heir to succeed him, he decided to adopt one who would be the ruler
of the kingdom when he died.
He thought to himself, ‘If I don’t have an established heir in place when I
die, there will be a lot of trouble in the kingdom after I die’.
He called one of his guards and asked him to make an announcement that
he would open the gates of his palace the following day from 6 a.m. to 6
p.m., and that all the people of the kingdom could come in and be
interviewed for the job of being the next ruler. No one would be prohibited
from coming in.
The next morning crowds of people assembled at the gate, each of them
hoping that he or she would be the next ruler. They were greeted by the
guards and the courtiers.
One of the courtiers announced, ‘You are about to meet the king and be
received by him. You must look good when this happens. Look at you all!
Some of you are just dressed in rags. We will clean you all up, give you a
nice bath, feed you and give you some nice new clothes, and then you will be
presentable to the king. Come with us.’
Everyone was taken into the palace and offered all the facilities that the
king enjoyed. For this one day all the visitors had the run of the palace, which
meant that they could take and consume whatever they wanted. Those who
were interested in perfumes collected bottles of perfume; those who were
interested in clothes collected many items of clothing. Other people
luxuriated in the king’s baths, ate his food, and watched his dancers and
singers perform. This went on all day and everyone forgot what he or she had
come to the palace for. The king waited in his throne room, but no one went
there to see him because all the candidates were too preoccupied with
enjoying themselves with the king’s luxuries. At the end of the day, at 6 p.m.,
when no one had shown up to claim the throne and the kingdom, the king
withdrew his offer and asked everyone to return home.
If anyone had gone to the king immediately, without getting sidetracked,
all these treasures would have been his or hers permanently, not just for a few
hours. But everyone forgot the purpose for which he or she had come to the
palace.
This is what happens to jivas. The throne of the kingdom of liberation is
waiting for anyone who wants to walk in and claim it, but these jivas all get
sidetracked into enjoying pleasures and accumulating possessions. At the end
of their lives they die and get reborn again and continue with their pleasures
and sufferings.
You are all so busily engaged with your attachments and desires, you
have forgotten the purpose for which you incarnated. You have forgotten that
you came here for liberation. What good will these desires, attachments and
possessions ultimately do you? What will you leave this world with?
Nothing.
Alexander the Great conquered all the known world of his day. All the
riches and territories of the world were his while he was alive, but when he
died he had nothing. And he knew this. Before he died he gave an order:
‘When you put me in my coffin, leave my hands on the outside. That way
everyone will know that I am leaving here with nothing.’
Make the best use of this moment in time, this moment that you have in
which you can look at your own Self and not at the objects of your desires.
This moment may never come back. If you postpone because you want just a
little more enjoyment before you go to the throne room of your own Self, you
will be lost, you will be washed away. Your chance will not come again. You
can see your own true face only in this moment, not in the next or the last.
You have to do it now, not later. In this instant of time you have to devote
yourself to your own Self.
To accomplish this you don’t have to study, you don’t have to practise
and you don’t have to go to the Himalayas. Just this moment, here and now,
is quite enough. Put your face inside and you will see it. Don’t waste this
moment. It is a very precious one. I am not going to discourage you. In fact, I
congratulate you for being here. There are six billion people in the world, but
there are only twenty people here today saying, ‘I want freedom. I want to sit
on the throne of freedom.’ Well done! All I ask is that you don’t postpone.
You have been postponing all your life – ‘I will do it later today, tomorrow,
next week, next year’, and so on.
Postponement is the mind. Mind is the past. Mind is manifestation.
Manifestation is samsara. And samsara is suffering. You have to choose and
decide what you want, and you have to choose in this instant of time, not later
on. In this instant look at your own Self. If you allow this moment to slip, it
will become the past. Don’t allow it to slip.
 16

Don’t load yourself up with the Ramayana of

everyone else’s lives

Papaji: The knower in you is aware not only of the knowledge that it knows
but also of what it has forgotten. You say, ‘I forgot such and such thing’,
don’t you? So, when a knowledge of forgetfulness is there, the knower must
still remain. That knower doesn’t go anywhere. The knower is imperishable.

Question: What about consciousness of the knower and the knower itself?
Are they the same or different?

Papaji: They are the same thing. Knower and the consciousness of the
knower are the same thing. How do you establish a difference between them?
Consciousness and knowing are the same thing.

Question: I find this knower rather boring. It interferes with the innocence of
perception.

Papaji: That is because, for a long time, you have been using this knower for
the wrong purpose. In fact, you are attributing the knower to something else.
The true knower is the same always. It does not change. When you know the
knower, you will know that nothing changes except your concepts. Whatever
change you see and experience is all a construction of your mind. You
become what you think about. Nothing happens unless you have first thought
about it. Instantly it happens. All manifestation is just one part of you. All
this creation, billions of years of past and future, is just one thought. When
this one thought comes into existence, past, present and future are instantly
created. Thought creates it all.

Question: What thought is this? Is it the thought ‘I am’?

Papaji: Yes, this thought has to venture out. And when you question it, it
vanishes. The questioning will take you back to where there is no thought,
where nothing has ever happened. It will take you to the root where there is
no tree. The tree is on the outside. What I am talking about is on the inside.
There is a question that will take you down to the very root. What is this
thought? It is the question ‘What is this “I”?’ You must return back to the
root of ‘I’. This is the one thought I was talking about. Everything depends
on this ‘I’-thought. The past, the present and the future – billions of years –
are all within this ‘I’-thought. When we investigate, all these aeons of time
are over. Investigate and everything will be over.

Question: [new questioner] How to investigate without effort?

Papaji: Effort is manifestation. Effort is towards something outside. When

the thought ‘I’ arises, manifestation happens. This is effort. When you say ‘I’,
and look to see what it really is, this is investigation. When you utter the
word ‘I’, instantly everything is there: past, present and future. Just look at
this ‘I’. This is what I call investigation. Just look at it. Face in the reverse
direction. The ‘I’ created manifestation. Now, look at it and reverse the order.
From manifestation go back to ‘I’. Put yourself into reverse gear. Don’t
engage the forward gear. When the forward gear is engaged, you are caught
in the cleverness of the mind. All questions such as these, all arguments come
in this category of cleverness. Reason and reasoning are also part of this
cleverness.
First do what I am saying and then see the result for yourself. Then you
will know for yourself and you will be able to talk about it from direct
experience. How can you talk about sleep unless you have experienced it for
yourself?
If you have never been to sleep, you can question endlessly, ‘What will
happen when I go to sleep? What goes on there? What is this happiness that
people say is experienced in sleep?’
No one can really tell you about this. It is something you have to
experience for yourself. We could spend all morning defining sleep and
talking about it, but how will this help you to understand this state? Just go to
sleep and see for yourself.
 It is the same thing with freedom. Thousands of books have been written
about freedom, about enlightenment. But is there any man alive who has
attained freedom just by reading a book? Enlightenment will not come by
reading a book. It may come by throwing away the book, but not by reading
it.
Everyone is seeking instant enlightenment. A desire for freedom arises
and you go to a bookstore or to an ashram to find an answer. If you go to an
ashram you will be given a change of clothes and a change of diet, but I don’t
believe that this has got anything to do with freedom. Food, clothes,
communes, ashrams, caves in the Himalayas: none of these has any
connection with freedom. It’s not in these things, these places. It’s something
else completely.
People think, ‘If I go to the Himalayas and find a solitary place, I can sit
down and get enlightenment’. You will not find solitude by a change of
geographical conditions. The friend who troubles you here will go along with
you in your head wherever you go.
I saw a baba once in the Himalayas. He looked to be about eighty years
old, and he belonged to some place in the Punjab.
I said, ‘Baba, what have you been doing?’
He replied, ‘I came here a long time ago. I ran away from my home.
When I was sixteen years old, I went away with some sadhus who came to
my village. I wandered around for a long time, but now I can’t walk well, so I
settled down here. I sat down here when I discovered I couldn’t travel any
more. Some people from my village found me here and told me the news of
my family. Brothers have married and have children. Land has been bought
and sold, and so on.’
Then he said to me, ‘If I return now, who will give me his daughter to
marry? I am too old. I don’t want to go back home. If I go back to my village,
people will say, “He’s coming back after sixty years. Why did he go away in
the first place?” So, I don’t want to go back. I will just sit here and live the
rest of my days on this spot.’
Many people are like this. They run away, thinking that some good will
come of a new way of life, but it doesn’t turn out that way. I have met sadhus
who were working on getting siddhis, and I have even met sadhus who have
attained some of these powers, but I have not come across a sadhu in the
Himalayas who has attained freedom. I have wandered extensively in the
Himalayas, but I have never seen or encountered a liberated sadhu. I have
seen much better people as householders, both in India and in the West. They
are doing much better than the people who live in communes and ashrams.
Householders live a regular life in the world. I have seen a few who have
been successful. They are much better than these sadhus. This is how I feel,
and this has been my experience.
I therefore don’t suggest that anyone run away from his work or his
family. Do your work. Neither working nor not working has anything to do
with freedom. Just spend a few minutes on yourself, wherever you are.
Running away is time-consuming. The time you spend on running and on
finding a new place can be better spent on yourself, here and now.
I knew a man who used to go to the Ganga to sit for one hour of
meditation there. His village was ten miles away, which meant a lot of travel
to and from his house to the river. He thought to himself, ‘Why don’t I build
a hut here? If I have a place here, I won’t have to waste all this time coming
and going. I can then spend more time here and meditate more.’
This man decided to shift his house to the banks of the Ganga. He ordered
some bricks for the wall, some wood for the doors, and some cement to hold
it all together. In those days there was no road and no trucks. If you wanted
materials such as these, you had to get them carried in on the backs of
donkeys. All these things had to be carried in on the backs of these animals.
Materials arrived, masons came and went, and he had to keep track of all
these deliveries and workers by writing accounts. He was so busy, he didn’t
even have enough time for his one hour of daily meditation.
He thought to himself, ‘I used to come here every day and have a very
peaceful hour of meditation. Now, when I get a chance to close my eyes, my
head is full of bricks, donkeys and workers. What have I started?’
The next day, when his workers came, he asked them all to demolish his
little house and throw all the pieces into the Ganga. He decided to go back to
his village and live the way he lived before. He came to the conclusion, ‘It’s
better to walk here, sit here for an hour in peace, and then go home again’.
There are many people like him all over the Himalayas – people who
spend lots of time and money trying to get their physical circumstances right
so they can meditate properly. The result is lots of ashram buildings and not
much meditation. Even when these people do finally get their nice building
constructed, they end up spending a lot of their time gossiping. I have
encountered people like this all over Rishikesh and in the surrounding areas.
People in the ashrams there catch hold of you and ask you the same
questions again and again: ‘Where are you working?’ ‘How many children do
you have?’ ‘Are you married or not?’ If you are not married, not working and
have no children, you will be asked, ‘Why are you not married, why are you
not working, why don’t you have any children?’ It goes on endlessly. All the
people in these ashrams know all the personal details about everyone else
who is there, but none of them knows anything about freedom. They are too
busy gossiping to discover what it is.
‘Look at that woman over there! She has already left four husbands and
now she is on her fifth!’ A good story like this will interest them far more
than meditation. The people who sit in these ashrams end up with not only
the burden of their own memories and experiences, but the extra weight of
everyone else’s stories as well.
Live in your own house and be quiet. That is my advice. Don’t load
yourself up with the Ramayana of everyone else’s lives. Stick to your own
little story. It is quite enough. Why load yourself up with other people’s
worries and histories? Every time I go to an ashram in Rishikesh I am told
stories of renegade swamis and scandalous incidents about the people who
are going to listen to them.
Instead of getting involved in all these dramas, stay where you are. Live
comfortably, have a good life, eat well and maintain your health. Then, in
whatever free time you have – it might be just half an hour or an hour –
devote it to looking at your own Self. Don’t waste your time going to
ashrams or communes. Wherever you are, just devote some honest time to
yourself. All you have to do is go home, back to your own Self. Say to
yourself, ‘I have to return’, and just devote time to this project whenever you
can. This will be enough. It will drag you home. Just don’t forget the real
reason why you are here. That’s all.
Do you remember the story I told you about the people who went to the
palace because the king wanted to appoint one of them as his successor?
They forgot the reason for going to the palace and instead spent their time
there bundling up things to take home and enjoying the various pleasures that
were on offer. They all forgot why they were in the palace, and in the end
they were all asked to leave.
Don’t spend all your time eating, drinking, wearing fancy clothes,
listening to music and so on. You can waste your whole life on things such as
these. And most people do. Keep a balanced life and remember why you are
here. You can have a shower; you can have a good bath; you can dress well;
you can eat well – but don’t forget to meet the king. He is waiting for you. He
has allowed you to enter his palace. The gate to freedom is open. He wants
you to walk through it, and he is waiting for you on the inside. Unfortunately,
no one goes in because everyone is distracted and seduced by something
outside that gate. This is not good, but this is what is really happening. Two
thousand six hundred years have passed since the Buddha ignored all the
attractions of his own palace and walked through that door to freedom. Who
is following him? No one.
All are enjoying, eating and dancing. Whose fault is this? Freedom is
waiting for you with extended arms, but you are not responding to the loving
embrace that it wants to give you. You are otherwise engaged. What you
don’t understand is that when you try to get happiness from all these objects
of pleasure, you are really searching for the happiness of your own Self. Your
search is simply misdirected. You are all looking for happiness, but you
never find it because you are all looking in the wrong place. If you find the
correct place to look, instantly you will get it. That instant is the moment you
drop all the pleasures of the king’s courtyard and walk directly into the throne
room to meet the king. How much time do you need to do this? How much
time does it take to turn your back on all these enjoyments in order to accept
the invitation of the king? In this story, the gate was open for twelve hours,
from six in the morning until six in the evening. In your lifespan you have
eighty years. You can enjoy that life, but remember that the most important
thing you have to do in this incarnation is to run into the king’s throne room
and claim that prize. Don’t postpone. Don’t think that you have time to do it
later. Make it your first priority. Reject transient pleasures and run inside to
meet your inner king. Once you have done that, the whole kingdom will be
yours.
While you are waiting in the courtyard, you have a special dispensation to
use the king’s property for one day. If you become the king by accepting his
invitation, it will all belong to you for the rest of your life. You won’t have to
ask if you can use the baths because they will all be yours. When you become
one with the Self by claiming your freedom, you will have no more desires
because everything will be your own Self. There will be nothing apart from
you that you can desire or want. Take this one instant to accept the invitation
of the king and receive his love, and from then on you will be happy all the
time. The whole world will be your own Self and you will revel in the
enjoyment of it.
If you just spend your life enjoying yourself, thinking, ‘This is mine’, at
the end of your life you will be sent away because you will have failed to
take advantage of the offer and the invitation of the king who is within you.
And when you go, you will not be allowed to take any of the things you were
guarding as ‘mine’ with you. All these things, your enjoyments and your
possessions, are deceiving you. Everything you touch is biting you, but you
don’t notice and you keep coming back for more. Touch anything in this
world and you will find that it has a sting in it. The rose may look beautiful,
but when you try to grab it, you get impaled on the hidden thorns. You have
to be very careful with what you do, what you smell, what you use.

[Long pause]

You are going to meet your own Self, your own very close relative. No
one is closer to you than your own Self. This Self is your eternal friend, your
deathless, permanent and most beautiful companion, but you don’t know and
appreciate this because you don’t look at it properly. You don’t have the
correct eyesight for this. Go near to it, have a glimpse of it, test it, and if it
doesn’t pass this test of permanence, reject it. Make your own choice, but at
least go and see it for yourself. Don’t merely rely on hearing about it from
others. Advance towards it, get face to face with it, and if you don’t like it,
reject it.

Question: [new questioner] How can one not like one’s own Self?

Papaji: All people, by their speech and behaviour, are saying that they don’t
like it. People like nonsense; people like things that are not permanent. No
one likes his or her own Self because all are liking what is not the Self, those
things that are impermanent. When you think and behave like this, you are
divorcing yourself from your own Self. Are any of these things that you value
so much going to stay with you? Sooner or later they will divorce you and
you will be alone again. Everyone goes through these divorces again and
again, but nobody learns from them. Still you go sniffing after all these things
that are impermanent. Life after life you carry on doing this because you are
addicted to behaving like this.
What to do about it? I have just told you what to do. Approach it and go
face to face with it. Give it one instant of your life. Steal one second out of
the eighty years of your life and use it to face your own Self. You can keep
the other seventy-nine years, eleven months, twenty-nine days, and all the
minutes and seconds except this one. This one second will be enough to
glimpse your own Self. And if you don’t like it, reject it.

Question: [new questioner] How do I see it? How?

Papaji: I have to be very clear about this. First I said that you are seeing your
own Self, which is not one centimetre or even one millimetre away from you.
You asked me this question from that place. It is that place from where this
question arises. The place from where this question comes is so near and so
dear. That place is so close to you, even the idea that there is a place separate
from you is not there. Go back to where this question arises. Not the place
where the question is seen and recognised, but the place where it originally
arose. This is prior even to the arising of the breath. To ask a question you
need breath, don’t you? So prior to the breath, prior to the appearance of the
question, what is that place where it all comes from?
That place is within you; it is your own Self. But when you ask ‘How?’,
automatically you move away from it. These three letters H-O-W take you
away from that place, so it’s better that you don’t use them. Why waste your
time on them? They are just distracting you, taking your attention away from
this place. Don’t choose this word at all. Don’t use the breath and don’t use
the word. Find this place that is prior to both. If you get it, you have got it. If
you lose it, you have lost it.
 17

This question ‘Who am I?’ will give you an answer

that you have never heard before

Question: So what is the use of all these questions? Can you say something
about the usefulness of questioning?

Papaji: Questions are useful. You have to ask them to remove doubts and to
get useful information. If you are in a forest and you don’t know how to get
out, you have to ask people there. There are two kinds of people who do not
need to ask questions. One is a foolish man. He need not ask. In fact, he
doesn’t know what to ask about. The other is a wise man. He has solved his
problems, so he doesn’t need to ask any more. In between there is this
community of seekers. People in this group have to ask. They are searching
for something, and they need help.

Question: But you are making it so clear that no searching can get you to
where you are already. All the searching is so useless. I see now that all the
searching is not leading me anywhere. However, I am still in the jungle, and I
still want to know the way out. Or I want at least to find the way to someone
who can help me to get out.

Papaji: Yes, you need to ask because you are not the foolish man, nor are
you yet the wise man. You are in the middle. You are in the forest; you don’t
know the way out; you are not comfortable in the forest; and you need a
guide to help you find out how to leave. You know that nightfall is coming
and you are aware that you are in a dangerous place where you might become
prey to wild animals. You know that you are in danger and you want to get
out before it is too late. So, why not seek help and ask for directions if you
know that you want to leave?
He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a foolish man.
Leave him alone. Shun him. Don’t stay in his house or have anything to do
with him. The second category is he who knows not and knows that he knows
not. The third category, the wise man, is someone who knows and who
knows that he knows.
These are the three categories. It depends on you which one you end up
in. Make a choice. The people who are in groups one and three are happy, but
for different reasons. It is only the number two people who worry because
they know that they are in trouble. They sense the danger they are in and they
decide that they have to do something to avoid it.
The people who are happy in their current circumstances are the foolish
ones. The ones who know that the forest of enjoyments and pleasures is a
dangerous place are the seekers.
Questions need to be asked. Questions reveal your own state. Questions
will reveal what you want and what you need to do and know. However, to
be useful, questions have to be on the right topic. If you ask about other
people, things external to yourself, your questions will be endless and
ultimately pointless.
There is only one wise question, one sensible question, and this is the
question that you will ultimately have to ask yourself. This question ‘Who am
I?’ will give you an answer that you have never heard before. This question is
one you can put to yourself; you don’t need any outside authority to give you
a reply. But no one asks this question. Everyone asks about other things,
other people. These inessential questions are all about the past. All questions
that go to the mind for an answer are about the past. If you can ask the
question ‘Who am I?’ and find the answer, you will be taken out of the past.
The solution to this question cannot be found in the past, in your memories or
experiences or knowledge.
No one asks this prime question. Instead people occupy themselves with
asking, ‘What is this?’ and ‘What is that?’ People sometimes ask ‘Who is
God?’ but even this does not address the fundamental question that needs to
be answered. No one has faced this one true question properly.
‘Who am I?’ ‘Where am I?’ ‘Who is this I?’ These are all the same
fundamental question. If you find the correct answer, all other enquiries will
end. It is not only enquiries that will end. All phenomena will end, all
suffering will end, all manifestation will end. This question doesn’t take time
to ask, and finding the answer doesn’t happen in time. The answer is found in
an instant that is beyond time. The answer is not miles and miles away.
Asking the question will not just quieten the mind, it will take you to the
source of all questions. This question does not lead to a quiet mind; it makes
the mind vanish completely. Mind will disappear, leaving you free. This is
called freedom: freedom from all questions, freedom from all sufferings,
freedom from the repeated cycles of birth and death. This is the one question
that needs to be asked.

Question: [new questioner] You say that in the moment one identifies with
the ‘I’, all things arise. There have been occasions when I have felt totally in
the ‘now’, totally free of all thoughts, but in that moment there is no
awareness that manifestation is no longer there. I occasionally feel the ‘I’
rising and attaching itself to ideas and concepts, but when I feel the mind
subside, when ‘I’ is no longer connecting to thoughts, I don’t feel that
nothing is there.

Papaji: The rising of phenomena and the non-arising of phenomena are both
concepts. Rising and non-arising will also disappear. Presence and absence
will disappear.

Question: So how do you know that they arise with the ‘I’ when there’s no
rising or non-arising?

Papaji: I say that presence and absence are relative and that in the final
experience, the final knowledge, they both disappear. Some schools of
thought say that the ultimate reality is a void, an emptiness. They put stress
on this void. They cling to emptiness, to the idea of the void, but this is just
another idea. Let emptiness arise; let forms arise; it is all mind.
It is the mind that has created emptiness. Emptiness is just a projection of
the mind. Where has this projection of emptiness come from? One must
discover this to avoid getting attached to the concept of emptiness. The mind
clings to whatever it has projected. If you have the idea that emptiness is the
ultimate state, mind will create this state for you and let you enjoy it. It will
let you taste this emptiness and feel satisfied with it. This is a project with a
predetermined end. You project the goal with your mind, and then that same
mind enters that state and tastes it.
Let forms rise or let them not rise. Let emptiness arise or not arise. You
are not concerned with either manifestation or non-manifestation. Where will
these mental states come to rest? Where will they subside to? That is
somewhere else, something else; it is undescribed, indescribable, untouched.
It is an untouched zone, an untouched region. [Laughs quietly to himself]

Question: But will it not also tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘Here I am’?
Will this untouched region not one day announce itself to me? At the right
time will it not come?

Papaji: You will never get a message from there. It will not clap or tap to
announce itself. It is a place of no return, a place from where no messages
emanate. But everything dances on it. Manifestation and emptiness are both
dancing on it. Manifestation and emptiness are both dancing on it, not
knowing what lies underneath.

Question: [new questioner] When I am sitting and looking at the way my

mind works, I see my ego getting carried off in all directions. I sit and I see,
‘I am angry about this’, or ‘I like this’, or, ‘I remember that’. Or I see myself
doing something that I know I shouldn’t do and I feel hurt or embarrassed.
What is the consciousness that is seeing all these things?

Papaji: Discrimination.

Question: Discrimination?

Papaji: Don’t discriminate. Let these things come and let them pass away.
Imagine you are standing by the side of a busy road. Cars are passing you
in both directions, but you are not interested in them because you have no
connection with them. Suddenly a car that has the number of a friend of yours
passes you, and that grabs your attention. You look at the car to see if your
friend is in it. Many cars passed without attracting your interest, but this one
grabs your attention. Your attention gets dragged along with the car, doesn’t
it? This is how discrimination works. Many cars passed and were ignored,
but when one that interested you went by, you used your discrimination and
let your attention catch the car and be taken down the road with it.
Who is discriminating in this way? Who is choosing to follow one
thought and not another? Ask this question. This question will stop the
moving mind. It will stop the process of choosing one thought to follow and
not another.

Question: I see that there are some deep patterns in my mind. I feel I am
programmed and that I have no real choice on how I think or behave.
You told me once, ‘You are a sinner because you have been trained to be
a sinner. You believe it and live that way. So, all your life you are going to
sin.’
So I decided to try a little experiment on myself. I decided to sit quietly
and see what this ‘me’ was when it didn’t have any ideas about itself. I found
it very hard. There’s no sense or feeling of ‘me’ without something else being
added onto it.

Papaji: You must get rid of this idea that you are a sinner because it is just an
idea that gives you trouble. ‘Sin does not reach me. Sin has never lived in me.
I am free of all sins.’ This is who you really are. That is the real you. That is
your place and that is your nature. That is your being. All the rest doesn’t
belong to you. It is just a bunch of ideas that you have collected from outside
agencies which you have subsequently accepted as your own. I don’t say that
you are a sinner. I know who you really are. You are me, and you are free.
That’s what I say, and that’s what I say to you. You have just been told that
you are a sinner, and you have believed it.

Question: That’s what I am trying to say. Yesterday you told me that I had
been trained as a sinner, that I had been trained like a seal. When people say
this to me, I believe it, and I start to behave as if it is true. It affected me very
deeply when you said this because I know it is true.

Papaji: It is not just you. The whole world is affected like this. It is in the
blood of each generation, and it goes on indefinitely. But it is all imagination.
It is a pile of straw that you can destroy with a single match. But you have
been so trained to think about sin and good and evil, you even think that
setting fire to this pile of straw might also be a sin. It is all these ideas about
good and bad, right and wrong, that stop you from striking the match. Your
impediments can all go in a bonfire that is lit by a single match. That fire is
freedom. Burn everything with this fire of freedom.
Very few people come to this path, and very few people are able to strike
that match that will burn everything.
 18

Self is closer to you than your own breath

Question: I still feel I need to make some effort, and the effort I feel I need to
make is to let go. I am also thinking about self-enquiry. When one asks the
question, ‘Who is it that thinks this thought?’ or, ‘Who is feeling this
feeling?’ is this not effort? Can you call this effort?

Papaji: Freedom is eternal. Liberation, enlightenment, is eternal, natural, and

here and now. This is freedom. Your own real nature is eternal, ever attained,
and the only effort you need to make to discover this is to remain without a
thought. Whatever thought arises, that thought will take you somewhere else.
You cannot win freedom through thought. Thought will take you somewhere
else, to some object which is not the Self. You can call this ‘effort’ if you
want to. You just need to check the tendency of the mind to run to objects
and cling to them. Just imagine what will happen if this doesn’t occur. What
will happen then? Give me an answer.

Question: Nothing will happen. There will just be a silence.

Papaji: Yes, there will be silence. Nothing more. If nothing is happening,

what is it called? Is it not freedom? If nothing is happening, is this not called
freedom? Is this not your nature? Is this not the light you are looking for? Is
this not wisdom? Thought is troubling you because it is running towards
objects, towards the enjoyment of sense objects. If you can check and halt
this tendency, this is called freedom. If you cannot check it, there will be
manifestation and suffering. If you cannot check this cycle of thought, you
will be caught in the never-ending cycle of births and deaths. You can choose
whichever way you want to go. Don’t be afraid of it because this is your
nature. Sooner or later you have to return to it.
What did you ever get from clinging to objects? From the beginning of
creation until today, what did any person ever get from it? What did any
person born on this planet or any other planet get from running away from
Self-nature? Has anything worthwhile been accomplished by this? If you
want happiness, if you want peace, if you want to abide in the eternal nature
of your own Self, in freedom, in wisdom, there is only one way: you have to
check the thought process.
Once you have known this trick, you can allow thought to wander
wherever it wants to go. Establish yourself in the Self, and then it won’t
matter where your thoughts go. When you have that wisdom, that knowledge,
you and your thoughts can wander freely wherever they want to go. But there
will be a great difference from before: there will be no fear. When you take
the coiled rope to be a serpent, there is fear, but when that superimposition is
absent, fear is also absent. Differences will go in that state. Fear will go.
What kind of effort is needed to return to your own nature? If you want to
go somewhere else, obtain something else, achieve something else, meet
someone else, then you have to make some effort, but to remain as you are,
what effort is required? You only have to make an effort if you are setting out
to acquire something that you don’t already have. If there is some object that
you don’t possess, and you want to own it, then you have to make some
effort. If you don’t own a car and you want to own a car, then you have to
make some effort to possess one. You have to go to work to earn money, or
you have to arrange a loan. When you have the money in your pocket, you
have to go to the showroom to collect the vehicle. All this is effort, and effort
like this is necessary whenever you want to obtain an object, something that
is separate from you. But what effort is necessary when the thing you want to
know is what you are already? To be as you already are, what effort is
required?
No time is needed. No effort is needed. This is a problem for most people,
though. Instant availability, without any effort, presents a problem for many
people because everyone is accustomed to making efforts to attain or acquire
the things that they want or need. There are things that are so near to you, so
natural to you, you never think that you need to make an effort to acquire
them. Take breathing, for example. No one thinks or makes plans to breathe.
No one works hard and saves up to acquire a breath at some later date.
Breathing is there all the time, naturally and effortlessly. You don’t have to
make any effort to breathe in and out; it just happens naturally. When you
were young, no one had to teach you how to do it. Every child knows how to
inhale air and exhale it again afterwards. No lessons were required. But then
the child grows up and someone says, ‘I will teach you pranayama. Come
and join our ashram and we will teach you how to breathe properly.’
Suddenly, breathing, something you have done effortlessly all your life,
becomes a complex subject, something you have to train yourself to do.
Making effort to reach the Self is just like this. Self has been there all
your life, naturally and effortlessly, but you were too busy looking at other
things to notice it. So, when someone comes along with a method and a plan
to reach it and attain it, you think that this is the way to proceed.
Self is closer to you than your own breath. It is that through which the
breath moves. It is inside the breath. Breathing may require a little effort to
execute. Muscles in the chest have to expand and contract, even if you are not
aware of them for most of the time. But even this minimal effort is not
required to be aware of the Self. It is there all the time, effortlessly. You miss
it only because your mind is always pointing in a different direction. You are
looking outwards instead of inwards.
The face of the mind is always looking outwards, going towards so-called
enjoyments. But are they really enjoyments? Wherever the mind goes, it will
just get a painful kick. All the things that you call enjoyments just result in
your mind getting a kick. So, what do you do? You drop that thing and pick
up something else, which also gives you a kick. This goes on until the end of
your life. No one has ever got any real and permanent satisfaction from
enjoyment of these external objects.
You pick up some object that doesn’t give you this satisfaction. You drop
it, thinking, ‘Not this one. I will pick up another.’ This process goes on
indefinitely – picking up and dropping, picking up and dropping. This is what
constitutes life here on earth.
This goes on because no one knows the source of happiness; no one tries
to find it; no one even speaks about it. Instead, everyone runs after external
enjoyments and just ends up with endless suffering.
From where does this concept of happiness arise? Nobody directs his
mind back to that place in his search for happiness. Direct the mind towards
that place from where the happiness arises. If you do this, you will be very
happy. The mind will be free. Instead of chasing after ephemeral things, it
will be glued to it, clinging to that happiness. It will never return from there,
and it will never want to. But no one tries to do this.
Talks like this have been going on for thousands of years; talks about the
fountainhead of happiness and how one can discover it. It’s in all the ancient
scriptures, and it has been continuing ever since. Here and there some results
have been achieved, but not many because most people simply don’t believe
it when they are told the truth about happiness. They disbelieve because they
are convinced that they have to make a big effort to attain happiness, and
when they make that big effort it always takes them to something outside
themselves, to something which is not the happiness of their own Self.
They don’t stay as they are. They disturb the stillness with an idea and
then use effort to chase it all over the place. It all starts with a disturbance in
the mind. Something disturbs the stillness at the base of the mind and trouble
follows.
Very few people have known the secret of happiness by finding its source
and origin and abiding there. And when they speak about it, no one believes
them. Samsara continues because no one believes the simple truth of
happiness, the beauty of being without thought. It is an absolutely effortless
process, and it happens instantaneously. This place is available to everyone,
here and now, in this present instant. ‘Now’ really does mean ‘now’. Not
before and not later. Anyone can dive into this lake and find it.

Question: Papaji, you say that it is freedom to have no thoughts arising.

When thoughts or desires arise and one just sees them as movements of the
mind, is that also freedom?

Papaji: These are contradictory statements. When the thought of freedom is

there, this is also a thought. Mind is fully engaged with this thought. How can
another thought be there at the same time? Two people cannot occupy a chair
at the same time. They have to take it in turns. When one person is sitting in a
chair, where is the other person going to sit? Thought and freedom from
thought cannot be there at the same time.
It is enough for the mind to be fully engaged with the thought ‘I want
freedom’. If this is so, there will be no room for any other thought. Two
thoughts cannot stay together at the same time. You cannot think of Boston
and Lucknow at the same time. Try it for yourself and see. You can switch
your attention very rapidly from the thought of Boston to the thought of
Lucknow, but you cannot think of them both at the same time. When you
think of Boston, your attention is in Boston, even though you might be
physically present in Lucknow. It is the same in meditation. Your mind is
wherever your thought is. If your mind is preoccupied with something, you
are in that place. If you can be in no-thought, instantly you are in the place of
freedom, but if you are in a train of thought, you are somewhere else,
preoccupied with something else.
Mind and thought are quicker than the speed of light. It takes several
minutes for the light from the sun to reach the earth, but when you think
about the sun, you are there, instantly. A few years ago you might have spent
some time with someone you loved. A thought about it comes into your mind
and instantly you are back there with that person. You race into the past,
going from the present to ten years ago in a single moment. You can make
use of this property of the mind to find freedom. It does not take years of
travelling and searching to find the source of the mind. Have a very strong
determination to be there, look for that place where thought arises, and
instantly you are there.
You can make use of this very strong determination to win freedom. With
this you can reach the source. This strong determination may only come to
you once, but once can be enough. If it can come once in a good human birth,
it will be enough. After millions of births you get a good human birth, and in
that life you get this rare determination to find freedom. It is a very rare
conjunction of events.
For thirty-five million years you have moved from life to life, from
species to species, until you finally arrived at a human birth. For freedom you
need a rare conjunction of events: a good birth in a good family in a good
country, and a desire for freedom. This desire for freedom will take you to
satsang, either with your own Self or with someone who has known the Self
and who can show it to you. Satsang is the place where freedom is transacted.
It is not just a place where people chatter about the truth. It is the place where
the business of freedom is transacted between the Master and the student.
This is a rare conjunction of events that needs a lot of merit and a lot of
luck. So many things have to happen for this to take place. All those lifetimes
bring you to this point. Then, when freedom is attained, you may see all these
lives, all these births that have brought you to this moment. I saw this happen
to me. When I sat on the banks of the Ganga, I saw all the species I had taken
birth in.

Question: What animals were you?

Papaji: All of them: worms, germs, everything. As they passed before me

one by one I recognised, ‘First I was this thing, then I was that thing’. I was
sitting on the banks of the Ganga while all this was going on. It was not a
dream because I was in the waking state. All my past lives passed before me.
I saw all my lives, and at the end of the sequence I saw the picture of my own
Master, and then the sequence of lives ended.
There were lives on other planets as well. I saw what kind of people lived
there. People wonder if there is life out there on other planets, but I don’t. I
know because I have seen it and experienced it first-hand.

Question: Are there any planets where everybody is free, and know they are
free?

Papaji: No. Freedom is only available in this land, on this planet. Everyone
has to come here if he wants freedom, including the gods. Even the gods have
to come here. This land is the one where freedom happens. All the other
places are for enjoyment or suffering. Everyone ultimately has to come here.
The mystery of all these lives takes place in a fraction of a second. It’s
like a dream in which a long complicated story can happen in a fraction of a
second.
There is an old story that illustrates this. A king had just returned
victorious from a major battle. A neighbouring country had attacked his
territory and he, along with his generals and his army, had repulsed the
attack. The king was sitting in his court, chatting with his generals. He was
very exhausted and tired. When his Master came in, the king immediately
offered him his seat. He dismissed all the members of his court, saying, ‘My
Guru has come. I want to speak to him. Please go.’
As the members of the court were leaving, the king fell asleep for a few
seconds because he was so tired. By the time they had all left he was fully
awake again. Sometimes a short nap, even of a few seconds, can have a very
refreshing effect.
He addressed his Guru, saying, ‘I have a question. We have just returned
from a military expedition. As you walked into the room, we were talking
about what had happened. There was a big battle and I felt completely
exhausted from it. As everyone was leaving I had a brief nap. Just a few
seconds. But in that dream I was a beggar. I lived the life of a beggar for
many years, begging for my food on the outskirts of a village and living in a
nearby forest.
‘One day I walked into the village and out the other side. One of the other
beggars asked, “Where are you going?” and I replied, “Today the king has
had a son. He has promised that he will feed everyone who comes to his
palace. We don’t have to beg today. We can go and feast at the palace. I even
hear that he is going to give away free clothes to everyone.”
‘I went to the king’s palace and everyone received gold coins, sweets and
silk clothes. Everyone was very happy because the king had been so
generous.
‘I thought to myself, “I am very dirty right now. I will go to the well and
have a bath before I put on these new clothes and eat the king’s food.” I went
to the well and started drawing a bucket of water. As I was pulling a dog
came by and took away the packet of food that I had left on the ground. I
chased it, and as I was running, I tripped over a rock and fell. When I hit the
ground I woke up, and here I am sitting with you in this palace.
‘I suffered so much as that beggar. I was so hungry, I was willing to chase
a dog and fight him over a packet of food. I spent many years in that village.
It seems to me that I was seventy years old when I tried to chase that dog and
finally woke up. My question is: “Which is real?” While I was a beggar, it
was all very real. My suffering was real and my begging was real. Chasing a
dog was my reality. Begging food from the king was my reality. I had a
community of beggars and that was my reality as well. Now I am the king
and it is my turn to feed the beggars. Sitting on this same seat, which is where
I had my dream, I had seventy years as a beggar. Now I sit here as a king.
Which is a dream and which is real?’
His Guru told him, ‘Both are real. While you were a beggar, you were a
beggar. You were no longer a king. You had no kingdom. Then you came to
this state and rejected that state. Now you think, “I have returned to reality by
leaving that dream”. But this state that you are in now, which also looks very
real, is also a dream. While it persists it will be real for you, but one day you
will wake up from this dream as well.’
The king had had a brief nap, suffered for seventy years as a beggar, and
then woken up. That life all took place in an instant of time. When you wake
up to the Self, you will know that all your lives, all the thirty-five million
years that you spent passing from birth to birth and suffering endlessly in
each incarnation, were just a dream that took place in an instant of time. You
will wake up and know, ‘That was all a dream. All those lives were just a
dream.’
The wise man knows this, but the ignorant mind does not. But if
ignorance is removed, wisdom will be there. Wisdom removes all this
ignorance. The state of begging will go and it will be as if it had never
existed. This is the ultimate destiny of everyone. Everyone is going to wake
up sooner or later. This is your birthright as a human being. You have been
given this body so that you can make the decision to wake up and be free.
However, you are not making up your mind. You are not making this choice.
You are still chasing the dog in your dream, thinking you are a hungry
beggar. You are not seeing your own kingdom and you are not seated on the
throne.
This body is a temple, and God is seated inside you. But you are not
going to see him because you are always going outside. Because you are not
aware of God inside, you run after other, outside things. This human body,
this temple that has been given to you, is a very rare birth. If you reject it and
the opportunities it gives you, it will be a tremendous loss. You don’t know
when these circumstances will come to you again. Nobody knows. You don’t
know if this desire for liberation will ever come to you again.
Don’t prolong your journey, thinking that it will all culminate in some
future life. You have no guarantee that you will ever get these favourable
circumstances again. Here you are, in a human body, in satsang, with a desire
for freedom. Make the best use of this desire for freedom. Cut short your
journey. It doesn’t take time. I’m not prolonging it, you are. I am not telling
you that you have to go on a long journey, that you have to do long
meditations. I don’t say that you have to join ashrams in the Himalayas. I am
not sending you anywhere, and I am not asking you to change your routine of
life. I am not telling you to change into robes and cut your hair. Live well and
continue to do your work. Show to the world that it is not necessary to run
away in order to find freedom.
I don’t encourage people to run away from home, to abandon their
situations, whatever they may be. A businessman can be a better
businessman; a soldier can be a better soldier. I don’t believe in escapism.
When people leave their life situation, usually no good results. They get
spoiled. People who run away because they don’t enjoy their old life will not
enjoy their new life either. Stay with what you are doing because what I am
talking about doesn’t take much time, and it doesn’t need a change of
location. Monasteries are not needed for freedom. Freedom doesn’t demand
anything. There are no physical preconditions that you have to meet in order
to be ready for it. It is available anytime, anywhere. You just have to pine for
it.
Make a decision: ‘I want this’. That’s all. If you really do want this, and if
your desire for it is not contaminated or diluted by any other desire, you will
succeed. Whoever makes this strong decision and sticks to it will get there,
but this strong decision is needed.
 19

Mind is looking for awareness, but the aware mind

does not look for anything

Question: In the preface to I am That it is said that Nisargadatta Maharaj

received instructions from his Guru, who died shortly afterwards. It took him
a further three years, he says, before he could really abide in the teachings.

Papaji: It may take time for the teachings to mature. Maturity must be there.
Understanding can come instantaneously for some people, but with others
there is a kind of haggling that comes from not fully agreeing to the truth the
first time it is heard. Old habits of the mind might reassert themselves for a
while. It may take time for the final settlement, the final agreement, to be
enacted. It may even take a few lifetimes. Even after receiving the
knowledge, it may still take a few more births. Some old attachments may be
left for a while. However, in some cases it may not take time at all. It all
depends on how the teaching is received, and, what’s more, it has to be
practised for the whole of one’s life afterwards. That full abidance can take a
long time. Then only can you abide in That. Otherwise, old habits will pull
you back again and again.
In most cases people do not attain the perfect state. They obtain
information about it by listening, but this kind of information is indirect
knowledge. Then you have to abide by it, abide in it by reflecting on it again
and again. How successful you are depends on you.

Question: You are telling us all to be without thought, not to stir a thought. I
am reminded of the wonderful lines of Seng-Tsan, the third Zen patriarch
who wrote: ‘Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you will not be
able to know.’

Papaji: Yes, stop talking and stop thinking. That’s the way to true
knowledge.

Question: I have been reading about various Tibetan practices, and I have
come across many descriptions of deva and god realms. There are practices
whereby one can go to these realms and experience them for oneself. There
are many levels of gods and spirits in this Tibetan hierarchy. I spoke to you
once about all these different worlds and you said that they really did exist
and that one could visit them. But at the same time you said that they were all
a projection of the mind, and as such were nothing to do with freedom.

Papaji: If you think, the whole process of manifestation is there. Mind can
construct anything, even all these realms of gods and spirits. Many seemingly
impossible things can be constructed by the mind.

Question: I was in Bodh Gaya once, listening to a teacher say, ‘Empty the
mind. You must empty the mind.’ He said this again and again. There was a
very crazy monk there who kept saying that he had an empty mind. I asked
this teacher if it was really true because this man was acting in a very bizarre
and irrational way.
The teacher told me, ‘This man was born with an empty mind, which
means that he is naturally stupid. When you have something in your mind,
and when you have the discrimination to throw it away and leave an empty
mind, then this is wisdom, enlightenment. This is the difference. You must
have the discriminating wisdom to discard what you see is there.’

Papaji: When the mind is naturally empty, how can it still be called ‘mind’?
Mind is mind only when thought is there. No thought is something else. In no
thought there is not even the idea of an empty mind. While thought is still
there, ‘empty mind’ is just another thought, another concept.
If I tell you to meditate but not think of a cat while you are meditating,
what will happen? You will naturally sit there thinking of a cat because I
have put this suggestion in your mind. If I say ‘Empty the mind of all
thought’, you will have this idea of an empty mind inside you while you
meditate. That too will become one of your thoughts, one of your concepts. It
is better not to talk about states of mind, particularly ones that you think you
have to reach, because ideas about these states will end up as extra thoughts
in your mind.
It is better not to talk about the mind at all. Don’t touch it or have
thoughts about it because, if you do, they will just bite you. When you need
to make use of it, then use it, but don’t carry it around with you
unnecessarily. Don’t keep it in your pocket when you don’t have to. When
you are not using it, leave it alone.

Question: [new questioner] This morning I had a very strong sense that
nothing has awareness. I realised that something in me was clinging to this
idea that ‘I’ have awareness, or that ‘I’ had awareness at some point in the
past. But as I looked at this idea, I realised that it wasn’t true. My arm doesn’t
have awareness, my leg doesn’t have awareness, my nerves, my muscles
don’t have awareness. Not even my brain or its thoughts have awareness. I
came to the conclusion that nothing can ‘have’ awareness. Awareness just is.

Papaji: Mind is looking for awareness, but the aware mind does not look for
anything. This teaching is still undescribed. That’s what I think, anyway. It’s
untouched, unspoken, virgin, no one has arrived there, and no one has made a
teaching of it. No one has even touched this teaching so far. This is my
conclusion. Anyone can pick up a pebble here and there, go to the summit of
a mountain and cry, ‘I have found the diamond!’ The true teaching is still
undescribed, unexplained.

Question: Do you mean that the words that people use to describe the
diamond are really only words that describe the pebble?

Papaji: What do you mean?

Question: That he who finds the diamond doesn’t have the vocabulary to
describe it properly. There are only words to describe the pebbles.

Papaji: Yes. When you talk, your talk can only be about the pebbles. The
diamond needs no description. In fact, it cannot be described. It simply shines
by its own light. It has its own lustre, its own luminosity. It is in no need of
anyone’s description. This is the diamond. Direct awareness of it with no
mediating agent – no teacher, no sutra, no mind, no practice – is direct and
true knowledge. For freedom you need this unmediated and indescribable
awareness of what is true and real. All the other things – the teachings, the
practices, and so on – are just maps that give indirect information about it.
The map is not the reality; it is just a description or a picture on a piece of
paper. You can have a lot of maps, a lot of information that gives you
directions, and still have zero knowledge of what they all pertain to.
This knowledge is not far from you, so you don’t really need a map to
find it. Whatever you speak about, that object, that thing, is something that is
separate from you. Even the word ‘Self’ is just an idea that you talk about. It
is not the real thing. You only speak of things that are some distance from
you. When it is too close to you, you can’t see it and speak about it. What I
am pointing to is nearer than your own breath, it is behind the retina through
which you see. It is prior to the beginning of all thought. See it if you can.
You have a desire for freedom, but what I am speaking of is prior to that
desire. What teaching can reach there? A teaching about freedom will only be
there after the desire for freedom has arisen.

Question: I want to ask about the maturing process that you talked about
recently, and the fall that some people seem to experience after they have had
a good experience. When I went back to England, I found many problems
arising when I took the position, ‘I am free; these problems can’t touch me’.
That stance didn’t seem to do me much good or solve any of the
problems. In the end I felt I had to re-engage with the world, immerse myself
with all these stories, work them through in the traditional way with the
feeling, ‘I must solve this problem’. Trying to create a safe space around
myself by thinking, ‘None of this can touch me’, didn’t seem to work. I
decided that I was manifesting a state of ‘unfreedom’ by hiding from the
everyday problems of the world. It seems to me that I had to fall from my
state of detachment to get things done. In the end I came to the conclusion
that when problems came up, I had to attend to them in the usual way. I
decided that real freedom is not to deny them.

Papaji: When the time comes, you have to act. If you are on the battlefield, it
is your job to lift up your gun and shoot. Lifting up garlands of roses will not
do. If it is your dharma to fight, you must fight, and not run away or hide. But
whatever your dharma is, you must not forget the root, the source. Whether
you are meditating, praying or fighting, the source is the same. You must be
aware of that source at all times and take dictation from it. It will make you
do what you have to do, but if you are aware of this source that prompts the
actions, there will never be a problem for you. Always be aware that there is
dictation going on. A dictator is dictating to you. If you don’t interfere and
allow all these dictated actions to take place, you will never regret anything.
You will know that you are simply doing what this higher power is making
you do. What is going to happen is going to happen. You can’t change it by
deciding on either action or inaction. These choices are not available to you.

Question: [new questioner] A little while ago you mentioned that freedom is
prior to the desire for freedom.

Papaji: Yes.

Question: Something struck me when you said this. The thought came up,
‘How can there be separation between the desire for freedom and freedom
itself?’

Papaji: Yes, I said that freedom itself is prior to the desire for freedom. If the
desire for freedom arises, it means that you are no longer knowingly in
freedom, that you have somehow left that pre-existing state and want to
return to it. If that desire for freedom arises, then spend your whole life
finding out where that desire has come from, where it originated. If you
finally arrive at that place, that freedom, you will immediately understand
that this freedom is something that you already knew; it is something that you
always had. You will understand that this desire for freedom was a state in
which you ignored or were not aware of what was already there.
When freedom is discovered, it is the natural, spontaneous return to your
own Self-nature. When you arrive, you will immediately know and
understand, ‘I already knew this. This was here all the time, but I didn’t pay
attention to it.’
I recently told you the story of what happened to me when I was a child,
when I was offered that mango lassi and couldn’t drink it because I was
plunged into a paralysing state of beauty and happiness. This happened to me
long before I had any knowledge about freedom or any desire for it. When I
returned to normal consciousness, there was this compelling urge to go back
to that state, to experience it and to understand it. I didn’t call it a desire for
freedom in those days because I didn’t have that concept. There was just an
overwhelming urge to go back to that state.
‘What is this happiness? What is this thing that is so beautiful, so loving,
I have not seen anything equivalent to it in the world so far?’
This search obsessed me, compelled me to plunge myself into this beauty
again and again. Though I regained the experience, I never ‘understood’ it. I
could never explain it, and I could never talk about it. This is why I say
sometimes that it is ‘untouched’, ‘undescribed’. This urge to have it
explained and talked about is still there, though, which is why I love to hear
people trying to describe it.
I say to people, ‘Come on! Describe it to me! Give me some hint. I want
to listen as you try to express yourself. Come near and let me enjoy your
description.’
No one has ever described it, but I still love listening to people try.

Question: Sometimes we have an experience and we don’t even know until

you tell us about it. Did this happen with you? Did somebody, Ramana
Maharshi, confirm this experience for you? Did you also need to be told?

Papaji: It was not verbal, but the confirmation was there. In his presence I
was absorbed in this same happiness and beauty that came to me
spontaneously when I was a child. I recognised it to be the same state, and I
recognised it to be my own Self. It was not a new thing that happened. It was
a confirmation, a recognition of a truth I already somehow knew. But still, it
has never been described; it has never been defined.
Different people talk about it in different ways. The Buddha called it
emptiness, the void. That’s not a true description either. It is really just
another way of saying that it cannot be described. Ramana called it
‘Arunachala’, ‘the unmoving mountain of light’. That’s what Arunachala
means. ‘Achala’ means both ‘stillness’ and ‘mountain’, and ‘aruna’ means
‘light’. This is the wisdom that never moves. That is his description, his
explanation, but this is still just a finger pointing at something that cannot be
truly explained or described. I say ‘happiness’ and ‘beauty’ when I have to
think of a word, but these are also just words that merely hint at something
that is utterly indefinable.
 20

The Guru is none other than your own Self

Question: What is the role of the Guru?

Papaji: A person approaches the Guru and says, ‘I am suffering. I am tired of

coming again and again into the womb of different species. I am burning.
Please help me. Save me from this fire.’
The Guru is the one who can free you from this suffering. That is his role.
The word Guru literally means ‘dispeller of darkness’. He who dispels the
darkness from the minds of the people who come to him, saying that they are
bound, is the Guru. He who removes their sufferings and their doubts and
helps them have the firm conviction that they are free is the Guru. This is his
role.

Question: [new questioner] The role of the Guru doesn’t really happen on an
outer level, does it? The outer Guru is just there to remind us of what is inside
us. Is this not so?

Papaji: The Guru speaks of the Self, and he speaks to the Self, not to the
clothes you are wearing. He doesn’t speak to the body, the senses or the
mind. The Guru’s role is to speak to the inner Self that is already free. People
do not know this Self.

Question: I have the feeling that we dream the Guru who is outside us.

Papaji: Yes, the outer Guru, in your dream, tells you that he is within you.
What else will he say? If you see him outside you, that means that you have
projected his form in the dream that you are dreaming. That dream form of
the Guru will then tell you that, in reality, he is within you as your own Self.

Question: Amazing!
Papaji: The Guru is none other than your own Self; your very own Self.
Your own Self is your own Guru, and the real Guru always takes you back to
your own Self, not to somewhere else. He withdraws the outgoing tendencies
of the mind and puts them back within you.
Don’t project outside to things that are external. Bring all these
tendencies, wherever they go, back to the source, the Self. When they have
all been brought back there, you will know your own Self. It is the outgoing
tendencies that are keeping you occupied, so occupied you have no time to
look at your own Self. When this mind is not going outwards, when it is not
preoccupied with an object, a thought or a desire, the outgoing tendencies
will withdraw and you will shine as your own Self. What else can shine in
that state? You are always, always That.

Question: [new questioner] All questions here seem to have the same
answer.

Papaji: When you are lost in the forest you have to ask many questions. In
such circumstances you need a guide and a map.
Night is falling. How do you get out of the forest? How do you return
home? If you are already in your home, you don’t need a map or a guide.
You have no problems in this situation.
Now though, you are out in the forest, wondering what to do. In a real
forest your first priority is to find out where you are, because without that
knowledge you cannot move in the right direction. In the forest of the mind,
which is where all seekers are lost, the most important question is ‘who’ not
‘where’. Who are you? And, earlier on, where did I come from? These are the
problems you have to solve if you want to leave this particular forest. If you
can’t solve this problem by yourself, then seek someone who can help you to
solve it.
Try to find your own Self by spending some time on this question. You
have never asked this question before. You have spent your life asking ‘What
is this?’ and ‘What is that?’ but you have never asked yourself the question
‘Who am I?’ In an entire lifespan no one spends even five minutes on this
most important of questions. Five minutes is enough, quite enough. You can
ask this question anytime, anywhere. There are no auspicious circumstances
for this question: no holy spot is needed, no holy river, no particular place, no
special environment. Just ask it wherever you are.
No one is serious about this. This is a question one has to solve now
itself. It is not something that you postpone for later.
Everyone is trying, indirectly, to solve this problem by looking for
happiness, love or beauty. The hunger for happiness is actually a hunger for
the happiness of one’s own Self, but people don’t know or understand this, so
they look for it in the wrong place.
‘No, this is not what I want. I will try something else.’ This goes on
throughout life. One thing after another is picked up and rejected because no
one knows the true place where real happiness can be found.
‘Where should I search? Where can I find it?’ The correct place to find
happiness is not known, and so everyone continues to search in all the wrong
places. It is akin to looking for one’s glasses while one is actually wearing
them. We forget or don’t know that the Self which is being sought is the
same Self that is doing the looking. The same power, the same consciousness,
the same awareness that is enabling us to conduct these futile external
searches is actually the target of our search.
No one questions ‘What is this consciousness through which I am
searching for consciousness?’
You need this consciousness for everything. You need this awareness for
everything. What is this awareness that you need? No one takes notice of this
or tries to find out what it is and where it comes from.
 21

Dwelling on the enjoyment creates the desire to

enjoy it again and again

Papaji: When objects are there, consciousness gets occupied. It disintegrates

into separateness. It gets caught up in the perceived objects and loses
awareness of the source of consciousness. In that fragmented state it is not
aware of itself as consciousness, and it is not aware that it is being obstructed
by associating with an object.
You cannot see an object without being conscious. It is through
consciousness alone that objects are seen. You are conscious of seeing an
object, but as the process of seeing goes on, you become attracted to the
object, and then attached to it. These objects are then known as enjoyments of
the senses because it is through the senses that these objects are registered in
consciousness. The mind gets attached to enjoyment of the object and forgets
its own source, which is consciousness or emptiness. When the object is
removed, the mind returns back to space. When there are no objects, the
inherent nature remains, as it is. The obstruction to this natural, inherent state
is our attachment to objects. When this happens, this same unitary
consciousness gets cut up, divided, limited. In this disintegrated state we feel
that we are not aware. Consciousness is no longer being experienced as a
unitary whole.
This process that continues indefinitely is called ‘manifestation’.
However, once you know that these objects are within consciousness, that
they are not separate from it, you are not troubled by them. Consciousness is
not affected by having objects appear in it. It is all the same to consciousness
whether it is holding objects or not holding objects. If you identify with
consciousness instead of the objects, there will be no trouble. You must learn
this trick.
You can play with the objects and not hold them if you know that they are
just appearances in consciousness, but this is not what happens in most cases.
Most of the time there is the desire to enjoy, which is followed by the
enjoyment itself, and that in turn is followed by the remembrance of it. This
is where the trouble arises, not in the enjoyment itself, but in the
remembrance of it afterwards. Contact with the enjoyment is over, but
remembrance is still there. That residual remembrance sets up a desire for
enjoyment of the same object again. And so it goes on indefinitely.
Dwelling on the enjoyment creates the desire to enjoy it again and again.
This is what troubles you; this is what causes you suffering. When there is an
absence of enjoyment, there is suffering because you still have the unfulfilled
desire to go back to that enjoyment again. Let the objects come; enjoy them
and then drop them. Once you have enjoyed them, drop them from your
mind. They are no longer needed.
When you go to a restaurant, you eat, and then you walk out of the
restaurant. You have satisfied your hunger, your need for food, so why do
you need to think about the food and the enjoyment of it afterwards?
Mentally revisiting the enjoyments sets up a desire for more of the same.
Remembrance is troubling because it leaves footprints in the mind. When you
dwell on enjoyments, the dwelling leaves footprints in the memory. This
should not happen. It just creates desires and suffering in the mind.
Where have all these objects that you desire come from? They are within
consciousness, and they are your own projection. In the ocean the waves and
the eddies are just features of the ocean. They may have different names,
different forms, but they are still ocean. The ocean has no dispute with any of
these features, no desire to own or consume them. Let them appear; let them
stay or disappear. What difference will it make to the ocean?
Once you know that all objects are within your own consciousness, that
they are all you yourself, that they are all your own projection, there will be
no trouble. With that attitude, with that perspective you can go ahead and
enjoy. But don’t think about the enjoyments afterwards. That will only leave
footprints in the memory.
Once you have footprints in the memory, your activities will be motivated
by desire and fear. These footprints will choose your activities on the basis of
past experiences. Your thoughts about the past, your experiences of the past,
will make you choose your future actions.
About twenty years ago I was speaking about fear in Barcelona. There
was a professor there who came from San Sebastian. I made the statement,
‘Fear always belongs to the past,’ and he disagreed with me.
‘No,’ he said, ‘it can also be in the present. It can even be of the future.
Suppose, when this class is over, I drive home and see a policeman. Seeing
this policeman in the present might cause me fear if I have done something
wrong. This fear arises in the present moment, in the moment I first see the
policeman. I know what the policeman might do to me, and that creates in me
a fear of future events. That puts fear into the future realm as well.’
I disagreed with him. ‘Fear arises in you at that moment because you
have a past experience, a past knowledge of what a policeman can do to you.
You know from your past experience that a policeman might decide to pull
you over for some minor fault, for speeding, for not stopping at a light, and
so on. So your fear comes from a past thought, a past memory.
‘In the sleep state you are in the present with no thought of the past.
There, in that state, there is no fear. As you enter this sleep state, all your
memories of the past, all your accumulated fears, disappear. You cannot carry
this fear with you into the sleep state because fear is thoughts about the past,
and such thoughts have to be dropped before you can enter the state of sleep.
In the present moment there is no fear. There is only fear when you take your
mind into past thoughts, past experiences, and then use them to evaluate the
merits of future courses of action.’
He understood the point I was trying to make. When you stay in the
present moment, when you avoid the thoughts of the past, fear is not there.
In 1968 I was living in Rishikesh near a foreign couple. They were part of
the first batch of hippies who were slowly invading the town. They had a
child who could crawl but not walk. I was living near them. I was cooking on
my veranda, and they used to come and eat with me. This child also used to
crawl over to see what I was doing, and when she came I would give her
some food. Once this child got hold of a scorpion in her hand.
I said, ‘This is a scorpion. It can give a very poisonous and painful sting. I
will take it away.’
The mother surprised me by saying, ‘No, let it sting her. Only if it stings
her will she know next time that this kind of animal stings and that she should
leave it alone in future. This is how we learn.’
 It was an interesting theory of child development, but I don’t think the
mother really knew how bad a scorpion sting could be, especially in a very
small child. I took a pair of tongs and gently prised it out of the girl’s hands.
This child was living in the present. She had no scorpion footprints in her
memory that would make her afraid of scorpions. All fears come from the
past, from associations with previous experiences, or from things we have
heard or read. Without these associations, without these memories of the past,
there can be no fear.

Question: How do we prevent the footprints from forming in the first place?
Or how do we stop them from influencing us so much?

Papaji: The birds who fly in the air – do they leave any footprints?

Question: No.

Papaji: Fish live in water. Do they leave any footprints as they swim around?
When you do something, just do it and move on. Don’t remember what
happened, don’t remember what you have done, and don’t think about what
you have to do next. Have no thoughts about what might happen tomorrow.
Forget about it completely.
A few days ago I told the story of the prostitute who was carried across a
flooded river by a teacher, and how his disciple reacted to these events. The
teacher dropped the story from his mind as soon as he put the woman down,
but the disciple carried it in his head for miles afterwards. It is not the actions
that leave footprints, or even the enjoyment of them. It is the thoughts about
the actions – your reactions to them, positive or negative.
The master did the work and instantly forgot about the action. He was not
touched by his action and not affected by it. He just did what needed to be
done. A person needed to be helped; he helped her, and that was the end of
the story for him. But the student carried the thoughts and the judgements
about the incident in his head and left footprints there. These footprints make
memories, they make judgements, they make desires for the future, and in the
end they will make you reincarnate. This is the continuity of samsara, the
never-ending cycle of birth and death. These footprints will keep you on the
cycle of birth and death for millions of years.
 All this is not inevitable. It is within your power to be free of this
manifestation right now. Or you can just postpone it. If there is no footprint,
how can you reincarnate? On what account? For what purpose? If you leave
no footprints, no impressions, you are carrying nothing. When you have no
baggage, what will happen to you? The baggage is the merit and the sin you
have accumulated from actions and your thoughts about them. I will tell you
what will happen. Nothing will happen. This will be the end of samsara. This
is what I mean when I say, ‘Carry nothing’.
Do good, be compassionate, if the circumstances arise in which you can
help people. But then forget about what you have done. Don’t remember in
the afternoon all the good things you did in the morning. Keep your memory
and your mental reminiscing clean and empty. Shut your eyes to the past and
help when you are in the right place to do it, but don’t remember it
afterwards. Don’t accumulate footprints.
 22

Don’t stir a single thought

Question: This morning I woke up very early, about 3.30. I was thinking
about my husband. Today is the third anniversary of our marriage. I showed
you his photo once and asked if I should invite him to come to India. You
said it might be easier for me if he did. I was thinking this morning that
maybe I should call him and tell him to come. I went outside because it was
cooler and saw a shooting star very close to the horizon. I have been thinking
about this story quite a lot recently.

Papaji: Wherever you go you always carry something which is very dear to
you. I told you once about a place where you can’t carry anything with you.

Question: Yes, there is no need to in that place.

Papaji: [laughing] Yes, no need. You can’t carry anyone there, and that
includes someone who is closest and dearest to you. This place itself is the
closest and nearest and dearest, the most eternal thing there is, but no one
knows about it. No one ever knows about this relation. No religious book
mentions it; no wise man talks about it. It is up to you to find it because no
one speaks about it. They will only speak about what is already known. All
relationships that are known to you can be spoken about, but what I am
talking about is the relation on which all other relationships are based. This
relation on which all relationships are based is still not discovered, even
though it is the ground, the base, the foundation for all other relationships.
This is a great mystery, and only a rare one, a fortunate one, will find it.
Some rare gem of a person, some Kohinoor may find it, but it’s not for
everyone. Most people can’t even think about it.
All centres, ashrams, communes, monasteries are full of sheep. There is
only bleating there. There are no wise words. No one even talks about this
thing we are talking about. Abandon all dharmas and return to your Self.
Question: There is an awareness in me of who I think I am. Most of the time
my attention is centred there. Sometimes, though, this awareness seems to
move away from this person, to something else that is just awareness. I feel a
sense of loss when this happens. I feel like I am leaving someone I have
known all my life. It’s not a happy feeling. It’s quite sad at times. Sometimes
it even feels like I am dying.

Papaji: First of all, the centre of awareness is not moving anywhere. The
centre of awareness never moves. The centre that you are talking about is the
centre that is accepted by society as the real centre. It is the ego centre, the
‘I’, the centre from which proceeds the concept of ego, the idea that you are
the body, and so on. When you proceed from this false centre to the true
centre, awareness, everything falls away. Everything cracks and disintegrates.
That is why you experience fear.
The castle of ‘I’ is built on the beach, out of sand. It has no firm rock
foundation. It can collapse at any time or get washed away by the incoming
tide. This is the ego-built castle, a temporary and unsound edifice on the
beach. No one knows the true centre of awareness because who is there to
know it? The ‘who’, the person, is just part of the sandcastle on the beach.
There is no recording, no record of what true awareness is like because there
is no one there to do the recording. Everything dissolves there, including fear.
There is no possibility of having fear in that place. Fear is the experience of
the ego ‘I’ reacting to its imminent dissolution. It is not the experience of true
awareness. In awareness body concepts go, the senses go, the mind goes, the
intellect goes, the ego goes. Everything collapses and you are free once and
for all.

Question: I think my problem is that I am stuck somewhere between the two.

I feel like I am in a space where I am abandoning the personal ‘I’, which is
reacting with these feelings of fear, but I am not settled in the awareness
where the ‘I’ and the fear would go completely. The feeling of some kind of
presence is intense. A tide is coming in to wash away something that was
there before, but it is not strong enough to complete the job. The true
presence is not sensed clearly enough to give me the security of....

Papaji: You are talking about insecurity, the feeling of finding that you are
not at home. You feel a need for security because you feel that you haven’t
reached home yet. You are always at home. You are not somewhere else, a
place that you have to come home from. Now itself you are in the centre of
true awareness. Now itself you are free of all subjects. You don’t have to go
anywhere; you don’t have to return from anywhere; you don’t have to
become anything. You are already That. Start from where you are and stay
where you are. Don’t move from this place. Don’t stir a single thought. Let
no thought stir, or just look at this source. Just keep awake; keep alert; keep
attentive; keep conscious.
 23

No teaching has so far touched the truth

Question: I have been thinking about what you said a few days ago, when
you were speaking about the practice of self-enquiry. How you have to find
out where you are now, then ascertain your destination, and finally decide
which route and which mode of transport to use to get there. When I look at
myself, there doesn’t seem to be any distance involved, and that means I
don’t know about the mode of travel. It’s hard to work out a travel plan when
no distance is involved.

Papaji: Everyone in the world has decided that he is in a particular location.

That location is a fixed point. Then the religions come along and proclaim
that there is another fixed location that you will arrive at when you die. Now
you have two points. The point where you are, and the point where you have
to travel to. There’s some distance involved. Then the religions lay down the
rules of the journey. They tell you what you must do or not do if you want to
travel from where you are to where you think you need to be. They will also
tell you that if you choose the wrong path, the wrong road to travel on, you
will end up somewhere very unpleasant. They make you promises: ‘If you do
this, you will go to heaven when you die. If you don’t, you will go to hell.’
You have looked at this situation and discovered for yourself that there is
no distance between where you are right now and where you need to be. You
have made an enquiry and discovered that no distance is involved.

Question: And because there is no distance, no vehicle is required either.

Papaji: No vehicle is required to travel because if there is no location, no

desired destination separate from you, no distance is involved. So you have
no distance, no vehicle and no location to think and worry about. When you
know this, thought will not try to arise and go somewhere else in search of
freedom. No method is required to get you to where you want to go. That
idea is also finished. You are where you are, and you know there is nowhere
else you need to be. Since you are not thinking of other, more desirable
places, the contrast between this place and that place has also gone from your
mind. These are relative ideas.
If you live in Lucknow, you think that that is your home and you think
that cities in other countries are foreign places. When you don’t have
thoughts that somewhere else is foreign to you, then the concept of
motherland and home also goes. The idea of location is always of one place
relative to another. But location too is just a concept, an idea. Truly,
everything is empty. There are no locations and no destinations. There is
nothing for you to do because there is nowhere for you to move. This is very
important and you must understand this. Through investigation you have
thrown all these things away. All these impediments are no longer there.
These are the concepts that have been rising and troubling you for the last
thirty-five million years. Now, they are no more here. What do you have to
do here? How do you meet this situation? This is very important.
Here, don’t use a word that has been used before. Don’t utter any words
that foolish men before you have uttered. Foolish men use the tracks and are
led like sheep. You don’t even need to use a word at all. You can enjoy
yourself without even speaking to your own Self.
When you retreat into the sleep state to experience the joy...

Question: I’m having difficulty bringing the enquiry into the dream state.

Papaji: The dream state?

Question: I find that I’m not engaging in enquiry in the dream state. Enquiry
is not there when I am dreaming.

Papaji: This is the enquiry while dreaming.

Question: No, I mean the other dreaming. The dreaming that takes place
during sleep.

Papaji: You are sleeping even now. What is the difference between dreaming
while you are sleeping and dreaming while awake? Whenever you see a
name and a form, this is a dream. In sleep, do you see any names, any forms?
Is the concept of sleep present while you are asleep?
In sleep there are no names, no forms and no concepts. Within this sleep
state a dream state will arise. Dreams can only arise when we are asleep. So,
when we see names and forms, what is the basic underlying state?

Question: Basic state?

Papaji: We only have dreams while we are asleep. In the dream we see
names and forms – mountains, rivers, and so on. When we see names and
forms, which state are we in?

Question: The dream state.

Papaji: Yes, the dream state. To have a dream state we must have previously
been asleep. Isn’t this true? We start from the sleep state in which there are
no names and no forms. Then the dream state manifests in which there appear
to be names and forms. The dream state ends, sleep takes over again, and we
are back in the state in which there are no names and no forms.
Now, in this so-called waking state you are seeing names and forms.
They trouble you in just the same way that names and forms trouble you in
dreams. To avoid them, to take a rest from them, we go back to sleep at night,
to the place where names and forms don’t arise. You can’t play with these
names and forms for more than eighteen hours without getting so exhausted,
you have to lie down and go to sleep. Ultimately, we reject this state of
names and forms and go to a state where we forget everything.
When you wake up from the waking dream to awareness of the Self, you
find yourself in the place where there are no names and forms. You
understand yourself to be the unmoving substratum on which all the
transitory images, the names and forms, come and go. You understand
yourself to be the screen on which all the names and forms are projected.
When you are rooted in that place, that knowledge, names and forms will not
cause you suffering any more. You have to identify yourself with the
underlying screen, not with the transient images that appear and disappear on
it. That screen is your own true nature. It has no location; it is at no distance
from you; no vehicle is needed to transport you there. Do you understand?
 If you fix a location that you want to travel to, then you have a distance
that you need to cover, and once you have a distance, you then have to start
thinking about what sort of vehicle you need to traverse the distance. This is
not my way; this is not my teaching. In fact, I don’t have a teaching at all.
There is no teaching and there is no teacher who is telling you something.
If someone tells you something, don’t accept it because no teaching has
so far touched the truth. This much I will tell you. No one ever spoke the
truth. No word has ever been coined to present it.
You have to wake up yourself; you have to see for yourself. The senses
are not needed, nor are the eyes. The eyes cannot see it; the mind cannot
understand it; the intellect cannot grasp it. None of these will accompany
you. You have to be alone without these things. You have to proceed alone.
None of the five elements will accompany you. You will go alone to meet
this situation, but what it is, no one knows.
You can reject the whole of manifestation because this is something that
can be rejected. The whole of manifestation – its beginning, its middle and its
future end – can be removed from the mind. Erase it all. Next, if there is
anything that might happen to you after life, after death, reject that as well.
This too is possible because these things can be grasped by the mind. The
mind can grasp manifestation and it can also grasp any idea that you might
have about an after-life. The creator of these two can also be imagined and
grasped. Reject that creator as well. So far you have rejected the creator, you
have rejected all of his manifestation and you have rejected all ideas about a
state that might exist after you die. Now, what is there left to reject? The
rejection itself. That which has rejected all these things should also be
rejected. Reject rejection itself. Then what will be left? There will be no
concept of rejection.
Please understand me: when I say ‘no concept of rejection’, I don’t mean
acceptance. I am just speaking about what can be rejected. Go on rejecting
everything that can be rejected, and when you have done that, reject rejection
itself. Then face the situation.
There was once a teacher – I am not as strict as he was – who told his
students, ‘I have spoken. Beyond that no one has spoken. If you speak now,
your head will fall.’
Question: I couldn’t understand the last sentence. I think I missed the punch
line.

Papaji: He meant, ‘If you speak, I will cut your head off!’
Some teachers have been very kind to their disciples, giving knowledge
with great love to their children. Some, though, have been very strong and
forceful.
Some say, ‘The path that you have to tread is like the edge of a sword.
You have to be very careful, very attentive. Don’t look this way or that. Two
cannot walk abreast. This path is narrow and the edge of the sword is sharp,
but on the other side is freedom. It is not far away. Just be vigilant as you
walk.’
Others will say, ‘It’s as easy as rubbing a petal off a rose. It doesn’t take
that much time. It’s just like taking a petal off a rose.’
The daughter of Kabir – she was seven years old – saw many people
coming to visit her father every day. About five hundred people a day used to
come and see him. Her name was Kamali.
She went to her father and said, ‘So many people are coming to see you.
They keep you busy all day, but I don’t see any results. No one seems to be
getting enlightened. Why do you waste your time with these people? You
don’t even take food at a proper time. Mother is there, the food is ready, but
when we call, you just shout back, “Wait! Wait!” Sometimes you don’t eat
for the whole day because you are giving satsang all the time. These people
come back day after day, but I can’t see that any of them is being benefited.’
‘No, Kamali,’ replied Kabir, ‘you are just a child. You don’t understand
these things. This is satsang.’
Kamali didn’t believe her father. She decided to test all the people who
came to see how serious they really were. The next day she sat outside the
gate, sharpening a butcher’s knife.
When the people approached her and asked her what she was doing she
replied, ‘Today my father is giving away freedom. It is Guru Purnima and he
has decided that he will give away freedom to everyone who comes, but first
he has asked me to check and see who is ready and who is not. He wants to
know who has really come for freedom. So, if you will lie down here, with
your head on this chopping block, I will chop off your head and show it to
him. When I take the head in and show him the face, if he then decides that
you have come here for freedom, he will give it to you.’
The first woman said, ‘No, today we did not come here for satsang. We
have a daughter we want to marry off. Someone was going to come today to
have a look at her, so I came to get Kabir’s blessings. Just touching the door
will be blessing enough. I will touch the door and go.’
The next man said, ‘I haven’t come for satsang. I have a court case today.
I just wanted his blessings so that the case would go well.’
The third person had a son who was about to be married. And so it went
on all day. Everyone made an excuse and left. Kabir ended up sitting in the
satsang hall by himself.
After some time he called his wife and said, ‘No one is coming today.
And I haven’t seen Kamali either. Go and see what is happening. She may be
doing some mischief outside. Call her in. Maybe she knows something about
this.’
Kamali’s mother found her on the road, still sharpening her knife, and
brought her in to the satsang hall.
She immediately told Kabir, ‘Father, I told you yesterday that no one
comes here for freedom. I tested everyone today and discovered that what I
said was true.’
‘How did you test them?’ asked Kabir.
‘I said that you had asked me to interview everyone who wanted to come
to satsang today. I said that you were giving everyone freedom today, but
only to those who really wanted freedom, those who had come for nothing
else. I asked them to lie down and told them that I would cut off the heads of
all the people who had come for freedom. I said that I would show you the
head, and if you agreed that they had come for freedom, you would give it to
them. I showed them how sharp the knife was and told them that it wouldn’t
hurt when I did the cutting. I said that I could behead them with one chop, so
that they wouldn’t feel anything. Nobody accepted the deal. They all claimed
they had come here for some other reason, not for freedom.
‘You are wasting your time talking to all these people every day. Speak to
me. Speak to my brother. Speak to us and give us satsang. Don’t waste your
time with these other people.’

[A short pause]

Here the doors are closed, and you are inside. You have arrived here.
Now, here, there will be a fire, only fire, and this fire will burn all the
tendencies that have been stored. That is, if there are any left. There will be a
fire, a fire of knowledge. Everything will then be very clear.
 24

Give up all relationships

Question: You say that thoughts arise out of ‘I am’. That must mean that
when I am not, all thoughts will cease. Complete thoughtlessness must be the
state ‘I am not’.

Papaji: Even this must go. Even this thought must go.

Question: You sometimes say that the last wall, the last obstacle or
obstruction, is ecstasy. Right? So then, in order to be free, we have to let go
of the last wall, ecstasy. Right? So the wall is ecstasy. Is that falling away by
itself, or in awareness do I have to have a desire to be free of that?

Papaji: Free of?

Question: Ecstasy, bliss.

Papaji: In ecstasy you are lost. You don’t have a choice to give it up or keep
it. When a man is completely drunk, how can the desire arise, ‘I want to give
up drunkenness’? He is not aware of anything. He is just drunk. Completely
drunk. In ecstasy you have even less control than in drunkenness. You don’t
know anything.
I was in Barcelona a few years ago. One of my talks was attended by a
man who was not a member of the yoga institute where I was giving my
talks, so no one there knew who he was. He came up to me while I was
giving satsang, prostrated and proclaimed ‘I am God! I am God!’ Then he
left.
He was found eighty miles away, later that night, dancing on the
highway, shouting ‘I am God! I am God!’ The police arrested him, found his
address from his wallet, and told his wife to come and collect him with two
other people.
 They told her, ‘He is completely out of control. He is not able to drive by
himself. Bring two people so that you can take care of him.’
His wife had to go and fetch him at two o’clock in the morning.

Question: I am sure you are not talking about that kind of ecstasy. You don’t
mean that kind of ecstasy.

Papaji: You’re right. This is not real ecstasy; it is just a meeting. For me, real
ecstasy is something like a peaceful stability, a stability of peace from where
there is no return. That should be ecstasy. Generally, though, I don’t use that
word. I don’t use the word ‘ecstasy’.

Question: I find in myself a joy of awareness that knows itself to be

unconnected or related with anything and....

Papaji: Being not related with anything is still a relationship. You are still
maintaining a relationship with those things you claim you are not related to.
You are still maintaining relationships. When you say that you have no
relations, or even no ex-relations, you are still using a word that positions
yourself in relationship to something else.
A man divorces his wife and says, ‘She’s my ex-wife’. Isn’t that what
they say? ‘He’s my ex-husband’, or, ‘She’s my ex-wife’. This is what you are
saying. ‘I used to have a relationship with things but now I don’t.’ This is still
a relationship.

Question: I’m not sure I understand this. Can you clarify what you are
saying?

Papaji: [long pause before replying] Give up all relationships. Give up all
your awareness of things that are known, seen, smelt, felt or heard. You have
seen the result of maintaining these awarenesses, these relationships.
Everything that you can speak about is encompassed in these things. These
are your relationships. Let us proceed to that relationship that no one knows,
that relationship which cannot be described, sensed, seen, or processed by
any faculty of the mind.
Question: It feels like the joy of giving that receives itself. It feels like the
joy of giving oneself that is being received by itself. Awareness that is not
related to anything.

Papaji: What is giving? What is giving to that thing that doesn’t fall within
the scope of those things we just spoke about? It is unseen, unsmelled,
untouched, unfelt, unheard. What are you going to give to it? Nothing. You
have nothing to give. And if you have nothing to give, what do you have to
receive?

Question: [new questioner] I think I feel that I expect something to come out
of this talking, but it feels like everything has already been said in so many
different ways. But the talking still goes on.

Papaji: No, it has been ended. On many occasions it has been ended. Do you
find any word to describe this? I have been working on this but so far I have
been unsuccessful. In my eighty years I have tried with two or three people.
They arrived at this situation that you have arrived at in three days here. I’m
very happy with you. This is the place. This is the time to describe. Say a
word. After forgetting everything and arriving in this situation, I ask you this
question.
Know who is meeting this situation, who is forgetting everything that has
happened up till this moment. Forgetting everything. Thirty-five million
years of burdens burnt and altogether destroyed in front of something that is
not seen. I want some description of it. I have tried with a few people so far
but they were not able to say anything. It is not referred to in any scripture; it
has not been mentioned by any person. It has not been given out by the words
that I have used many times. What I say is a very shallow description of truth.
I say, ‘enlightenment’, ‘emancipation’, ‘liberation’, ‘moksha’, but none of
these things fit. These descriptions, these words are no good. You have good
vision. If you can say something, describe something, then use some better
word.
Can you be satisfied with the words that you have heard already? If these
words were good enough, then people would have become enlightened by
reading the scriptures. But they have not given any help so far. Man cannot
speak when he is face to face with the indescribable, the untouchable, the
unseekable. You are face to face now. This is direct seeing. Everything else
that you have seen before has been indirect seeing. You have been seeing
through the mind, through the physical body, through your knowledge, your
intellect, and by using these media you have been knowing things indirectly.
This is the time for direct vision. This is the time for you to see directly: face
to face, eye to eye, retina to retina.
I want this description from you, a description from the place where
nothing is mediated and filtered through something else. I don’t want
something that comes from some in-between knowledge. You don’t need any
agency because no one is there any more. You can’t make use of your mind
because it is not there. Now is the time to make a description, but no one
comes forward to do it, including myself. I don’t find any word myself. I
can’t find one. You are a young man. Can you give me that one word?

Question: You want one?

Papaji: Just by being in that state you are describing it very well, but I want a
word. I want to be satisfied with the description. I want something that can be
spoken. I want something that can be said. Now, you are seeing it face to
face. I am satisfied with that. But now you must either speak of something
that can be described, or say something that cannot be described. There is
nothing apt, is there? The symptoms can be seen and talked about, but not the
original cause.

Question: What?

Papaji: Symptoms. A person may smile, and I may know from that smile
that the person is face to face with this knowing. The smile can be
understood, but nothing touches or reaches the cause of it. It is so calm, no
ripple of anything is there. It is nude even of nudity. Do you understand?
Nude of nudity. One can say that it is a lake without a ripple, but not even
calmness is there. Such is the state of silence. It’s like this. Who can ever
describe it?

[Long pause]
 25

Nobody believes me when I say, ‘You are already

in this state, this place’

Question: [the same man who asked the final question of the last section, but
speaking the next day] When I look, anything I would say about it would be a
lie because it’s so empty.

Papaji: [laughs quietly and then keeps quiet for some time] You have
nothing to talk about, so I will talk with your friend. You have to speak. What
are you going to speak about?

Question: There’s nothing I can say.

Papaji: If that is so, I have nothing more to tell you. When the mind is quiet,
why disturb it? With most people the mind never gets quiet, or if it does, it
only happens very rarely. I go on advising, speaking to the people who come,
but their minds mostly don’t get quiet. It’s only in very rare cases. In those
rare cases when it does get quiet, it doesn’t want to speak. That’s also one of
the tendencies of the mind. When it is truly quiet, it doesn’t like to speak, and
it doesn’t even like to hear anything. It doesn’t matter, though. Silence is a
tremendous language that you can speak with. In fact, in silence you can
speak better than through any other language. It is very close to something
that you are trying to know through silence, and not through words.
Yesterday I told you how beautiful it would be if you could describe this
thing. I would like to hear about it. I would like to hear how the indescribable
can be described or brought into some formulation of words. This work has
not yet been done. All other things have been done, but this work still
remains to be accomplished. It’s still unsaid. I wish it could be done, but so
far it hasn’t happened.
I have seen the statements of all the wise people, but somehow I don’t
agree with any of them. That’s why I am looking for a better statement. With
you, it is very fresh right now. It’s not too late. In the freshness of this
experience, say something about it. It’s not too late. Since you are there, you
can describe it for me. It’s not past and it’s not future, so you can describe it
here and now. You said it’s very empty. That word has already been used, but
it is not a good one because what you have seen is not empty. This is not an
appropriate word. You have borrowed this word from the dictionary because
this is the nearest word that you can think of. You have stolen this word, but
it is not the right one. This is not it. Definitely not it. You see something else.
What is it?
I am asking you this question. I do not talk to many people like this. I
asked a professor many years ago, and I also asked one other man. You are
the third. Only three people. It is not worth asking ordinary people this
question because they do not have the experience that I am asking them to
describe. I will not ask a blind man to describe an elephant. He will catch
hold of the tail and give a ridiculous description. It is not for the blind man to
give a description like this. It is for the man who is wide awake. Only the
wide-awake man can speak about this. This is called ‘the natural state’. You
see, you are not in meditation right now. Nor are you out of meditation. This
is something else. This is a state which is neither meditation, nor any other
common mental state.

Question: It’s everywhere.

Papaji: [laughing] ‘This is everywhere!’ ‘This is everywhere!’ This is the

language to use. You have found another word, but when you say it, it’s a
new kind of language. You didn’t need to meditate or go on a retreat to
discover this! It’s everywhere. Some man, some monk, wrote to me recently,
‘We are in a three-year retreat’. You don’t have to meditate or go into a
retreat to discover this because it’s everywhere. It doesn’t leave you; nor can
you leave it anywhere. This is your own state, your natural state. This is what
you are. You are never out of it.

Question: Because it’s so... ‘everywhere’, everything I say is inadequate, not

enough....
Papaji: Yes, not enough.

Question: It’s like an empty field. Everything is arising in it, but I can’t say
anything about it. I mean I can, but it’s just words in the wind. It’s just...

[Long pause]

Papaji: Activity is going on, but you yourself are inactive. Do you see this?
The ground, the foundation, is inactivity. You have never been active. You
are untouched by activities. This is called ‘emptiness’. This is inactivity. The
ground, the foundation on which all this activity is taking place, is inactivity.
This is a wonderful experience.
Could there be any way to understand this experience? You have
experienced it, so what is your answer? Can there be any way to have this
experience? Is there any way for an ordinary man, for everybody, to get into
this experience?

Question: They are all in it. They are already in it.

Papaji: [after laughing a lot] Excellent! Very good! Very good! There is no
better statement than what you have just said. That’s what I say as well, but
nobody believes me. These people who all disbelieve me tell me that they
have to do something to attain this state. They all think they have to meditate
to reach it or get into it. Nobody believes me when I say, ‘You are already in
this state, this place’.
I say, ‘You are already free. You don’t have to do anything.’ But nobody
believes me.

Question: No. I wouldn’t have believed it either if you had told me.

Papaji: [laughs even louder and harder than before and then says] So, you
are all right then?

Question: [new questioner] So you’re saying that we don’t have to practise?

Are you saying that there is no work involved? And no hindrances? Is that
what made you laugh?
Papaji: These hindrances are all self-imposed. There is no external power or
authority imposing bondage on you. You see a dark, wet line on the road; you
think it is a snake, and immediately fear arises in you. You don’t want to
proceed on your way because of this fear of the snake. A cow was passing
and she urinated on the road as she was walking, making a wiggly line on the
ground. You look at it in the evening half-light and come to the conclusion
that a snake is in front of you. Fear, a self-imposed hindrance, arises, and you
are afraid to walk any further. Who created all this trouble for you? There’s
no snake, so you can’t blame it on the snake. Your fear is not the fault of the
cow. She has to urinate somewhere. She didn’t do it in that spot at that time
just to make you afraid. The only hindrance here is your mistaken belief that
there is something dangerous in front of you.
Likewise, in your everyday life your hindrance is the concept ‘I am
bound’, or ‘I am a sinner and my sins will make me go to hell’. You have
been told these things, or you have read them in books and believed them.
They are not your experiences; they are just your beliefs. You give reality to
things that are just in your imagination. You are living in your imagination,
believing concepts that are not true and suffering as a result. Stop thinking.
That’s my remedy. If you are not thinking, then you are not imagining things
that are not true. That’s all you have to do. Don’t think and see what remains.

Question: But surely, don’t we have to work at not thinking?

Papaji: Let us see. Try it for yourself right now. Don’t think. Don’t give rise
to a thought and let us see what happens. Try it. Look for a single thought.
What is your first thought?

Question: Am I right? About not-thinking being work?

Papaji: No, we are talking about something else now. What is the first
thought on which all other thoughts depend?

Question: I don’t know. I don’t know.

Papaji: It is the ‘I’-thought. When a man is alive he has relations: wife, sons,
in-laws, and so on. When this same man is dead, he no longer has any
relations. While you are alive, all these relations exist in relationship to this
‘I’-thought. ‘I have a wife; I have sons; I have in-laws.’ When that ‘I’-
thought is there, everything else is there along with it: this world and all the
relationships you have in it. I am asking you to find out what this ‘I’-thought
is. Find out where it rises from. If you can find the solution to this, you will
be safe. You will have solved the problem of thinking and the imaginary
problems that it brings into being.
If you don’t address this problem you will end up following the other
sheep of the world. You will follow the sheep in front of you, and all of you
will be herded around by the shepherd who is following you with a big stick.
Every flock of sheep is herded by a shepherd. If you stay as a sheep, you will
need a shepherd to tell you what to do and where to go.

Question: Tim [the person Papaji was addressing] used to be a sheep farmer
[laughter].

Question: [Tim speaking] I’ve got twenty-five years of hindrances

[laughter].

Papaji: Good. He knows, then. If he knows how to take care of sheep, he

knows that they need a shepherd. They walk one behind another, and they
need someone to herd them in a particular direction. But you have never seen
a herd of lions being herded by a shepherd. The lion makes its own way,
makes its own route. It follows no one, and no one tells it where it should and
should not go. To find freedom you have to stop being a sheep. You have to
stop doing and believing what everyone else does.

Question: [new questioner] Then this freedom is reality. Reality is this

freedom.

Papaji: Yes.

Question: But we have been hypnotised to believe that it is not real. Isn’t that
correct? Maybe the function of a Master is to dehypnotise us so that we can
find the freedom again. All we have to do is sit here and be dehypnotised. Is
that correct?
Papaji: Yes. If someone has hypnotised you into believing that you are a
donkey, you need someone else to come along and show you who you really
are. If someone holds a mirror in front of you and says, ‘Look, this is who
you really are’, you may be able to give up your strong belief that you are a
donkey. What you really are never changes. It is what you believe yourself to
be that changes. And what you believe yourself to be depends on the
company you keep, and the things they tell you. If you associate with people
who continuously tell you that you are a donkey, and if you have no other
source of information, then you will grow up believing that you are a donkey.
Everyone is naturally the same. Everyone is naturally free. If one is not
free now, where will freedom come from in the future? It is not worthwhile
trying to achieve something that you don’t already have, because if you don’t
have it now it means that your attainment will be limited by time. What you
attain in time, sooner or later you will lose in time. Any attainment that
comes after some time is not natural, not abiding, not permanent. So I tell
you, ‘Don’t aspire for anything that is not with you here and now’.
This concept, ‘I am bound’, is not a true concept. This is not your true
experience; it is something you have borrowed from your priests, from your
society. All these people have told you that you are bound and that you have
to work hard to attain freedom. I say that you don’t need to practise at all.
You are a man, aren’t you? What would you say if I told you that you had to
practise to become a man? You would just laugh at me. In just the same way,
you are already free. You don’t have to do any spiritual practices to become
free.

Question: Don’t we need some kind of discipline?

Papaji: Discipline? You are already disciplined [laughter]. You have been
disciplined very well as you have moved from species to species. Among
them all, man is a very disciplined being. The human being is a very
disciplined animal.
How many donkeys are there? How many sheep are there? How many
other species are there? We humans are just six billion in number. How many
other animals are there? Look at the ants, the mosquitoes, the plant life, the
marine life. We are vastly outnumbered by the other forms of life. And
amongst the human beings, how many are just undiscriminating animals who
have merely learned to walk on two legs instead of four? If discrimination
and self-awareness have not come with your ability to walk on two legs, then
you are no better off than the other animals.
In how many people does the question ‘Who am I?’ arise? In how many
does the question ‘What is this “I” and where does it come from?’ arise? A
small handful of people out of all the billions in the world. And among those
in whom this question arises, how many actually find the correct answer?
How many have crossed this ocean of samsara? Have you seen any? Have
you heard of any? You will find that very, very few accomplish this.
When this question is asked, our minds go back two thousand six hundred
years, to the Buddha, to find an example. When we search the whole of our
history for a few examples, we begin to realise how rare it is. You can’t find
many who have accomplished this. It is such a rare phenomenon. Just one
man who was a prince. A thought came to him, ‘I want to be free’. A prince
is sleeping with his queen, and a thought comes to him, ‘Who am I?’ He went
out of the palace and was successful in his quest to find the answer to this
question. Because he was successful, we still honour him today. There are
statues of him and monasteries dedicated to the pursuit of his teachings all
over the world, just because he was so successful in this quest. He found the
answer to this question two thousand six hundred years ago, but still this man
is living. We don’t even know our own ancestors who lived less than a
hundred years ago but we remember and honour this man. His name will live
forever because of what he accomplished.
His is the true example of how to live a life on earth. This is the kind of
life that everybody should live. This is the best form of compassion. The best
form of service that you can do for the world is to know yourself. It will be
enough. Wherever you are, the world will be benefited. It doesn’t matter
where or how you live. Even if you just keep quiet, that will be enough.

Question: This is our true heritage.

Papaji: Heritage? There’s no heritage.

Question: Heritage means, what we are born for, what we are born to do.
Papaji: Ah, yes. This inheritance is your birthright. You have accumulated
enough merit to become a human being. That itself is a great
accomplishment. You have achieved this after going through how many
species? For millions of years you have revolved from species to species
without knowing who you are and why it is all happening. Now you have
attained this rare birth as a human being, a birth in which you can ask and
find out who you are. What’s even better is that the thought ‘I want freedom’
has arisen within you. This is a very, very rare combination. Don’t waste it.
It’s not hard; it’s not difficult; you don’t have to do any practice to win
this freedom.
One man, Steven was his name, came to my house while I was still living
in Narhi [central Lucknow]. It was the afternoon, the time when I used to go
out for a walk. I invited him to come with me.
As we were walking along, he asked me his first question: ‘What is
sahaja?’ Sahaja means the natural state. He had heard of this natural state
and wanted to know what it was and how it could be attained.
I told him, ‘This is the natural state. Look around you. There is a traffic
island. On one side is the post office, and over there are a restaurant, a
hospital and the zoo. Many people are sitting here. Cars and buses are
moving around; people are travelling to and fro. This is the sahaja state.’
That’s all I said, but he suddenly got very excited and started exclaiming,
‘I got it! I got it! I got it!’ He didn’t ask anything else. At that time, for this
man, that was the right answer.
What is sahaja? This is sahaja. Where you are right now is sahaja. You
cover it up with thoughts about good and bad, about what you need to do and
what you don’t need to do. You introduce confusion, and part of this
confusion is the idea that you need to do something to attain this natural state.
Wherever you are, wherever you go, you cannot leave this state behind. You
cannot keep it in your house and go out without it. It has always been with
you, and it will always be with you. It is the easiest thing to get because you
don’t have to practise for it. It’s natural; it’s already there.
 26

The primary mistake everyone makes is to seek

happiness from transactions that involve the senses

Question: Can people who suffer intensely really be cured?

Papaji: Suffering comes from old problems, from shocks people have had in
life. People go all over the place to get rid of these problems: religious
centres, yoga centres, therapy centres, and so on. That’s what I saw when I
was in the West – people running from centre to centre to get rid of their
problems. I have seen these centres all over Europe. Everyone was going to
them to get rid of their problems, to get help for things such as broken
relationships, and so on. However, they were all looking in the wrong
direction. Freedom, liberation, ends suffering, and not these assorted
therapies. That’s why I say that it is very rare to give rise to the thought of
freedom. It’s very rare. The people who go to these centres are running away
from their problems; they are not facing them head on. They run away by
dressing up in different clothes, doing yoga and meditation, and so on. If you
speak to these people and ask them why they are attending these centres, they
will tell you why they have come, and the reason is usually to get rid of some
problem or other. They will not say, ‘I am here to attain freedom’. It’s very
rare to find a person like this – very, very rare.

Question: Do these sufferings come through wrong identification, through

association with the ‘I’?

Papaji: Yes, it’s all wrong identification. You might say that suffering comes
from bad luck, or from mistakes made in the past, but the primary cause is
association and identification with the body and its senses. The primary
mistake everyone makes is to seek happiness from transactions that involve
the senses. Once you make this error, you get kicked from one transaction to
another, from one relationship to another. People who do this get lost and
often get into serious trouble. Some of them have come to me with their
stories. They come with stories of broken relationships, and one man even
came with some cyanide in his pocket, saying that he was keeping it to
commit suicide with. I have seen many such cases.
One of these was a man I met in Switzerland. He heard about me and
asked if he could join my meditation sessions. I told him he was welcome to
come. After some time he slowly began to tell me his story. He was a maths
professor from Paris who had left his family.
‘My wife ran off with one of my students, taking my six-month-old son
with her. I can’t bear the suffering this has caused me. I have come here to
end my life, but so far I have not been able to muster the courage to do it.
Perhaps if I stay here long enough with you, I will get the courage to do it.’
Then he went on to list all the preparations he had made for his suicide.
He had some property and insurance policies which he wanted his wife to
benefit from after his death. Since he was planning to end his life, he had
done the necessary paperwork to ensure that she received all the money from
them when he died.
I listened to his story but then I told him, ‘You are a foolish man. Come
back to India with me. I am going to Paris first. Come with me to Paris and
then we will travel to India together. Don’t commit suicide. Come with me
and I will show you another way to get happy, one that is not dependent on
relationships. I will show you a better wife, one you have never ever seen
before, one who will not behave like this, and one who will never run away
from you.’
He agreed to my proposal, but then he said, ‘I have no money to come to
India. However, I still have my car. I will sell it and get some money.’
He put an advertisement in the local newspaper and the following day the
first potential buyer came to have a look at it.
‘Take it for a trial drive,’ said the professor. ‘Try it out for a day and see
if you like it.’
‘How much do you want for it?
‘You can have it for half price.’
‘That’s not a fair price,’ said the man who had come to look at it.
The maths professor misunderstood him. ‘Look at the mileage,’ he said.
‘There’s hardly any at all. I have only been using it to drive from my
apartment to my university.’
‘No, no. I mean you are undercharging me. This car is worth far more
than half the new price. It has hardly been used. Why are you selling it so
cheaply?’
‘I want to go to India with my new Master, and this is the only asset I
have that can provide me with the means to accompany him. I need this
money to follow him.’
The man liked the story. ‘That is a good reason, and I like what you are
planning to do. Going to India like this is a very beautiful thing to do. I will
pay you the full price of the car because it is as good as a new car. Now you
can go to India with your Master.’
He came with me and we spent about a year together in India. When I
saw that he had got over his problems I told him, ‘You can go back to Europe
now. You are a professor of mathematics. It will be easy for you to get a new
job. Get another wife if you want to. You will have no problems now.’
People get into these states of acute suffering and don’t know how to
handle them. I have seen many such cases, not just one or two. These people
had been to ashrams or other centres, but hadn’t changed or improved. True
change will only come when you truly understand that happiness and love do
not come from transactions with outside things.
Let us say that you fall in love with someone and that someone is in
London. You need to go to London because your beloved is in London. You
need to travel to get there, and to pay for the travel you need money. But
what would happen if your beloved was so near to you, she was nearer and
closer to you than your own breath? If you start running or moving in any
way, you will be running away from her, not towards her. When you run, you
are escaping from the presence of your beloved, not moving closer to her.
Whenever you seek something else, something other than this beloved who is
closer than your breath, your seeking takes you away from her. This is always
the case. If you want freedom, you have to learn to stop running. You have to
learn to stay and be where you are. This freedom is not sold in the vegetable
market, or anywhere else.
You have to understand that freedom is within you and not in objects that
are separate from you. Then, having ascertained its location, you have to
decide, ‘When do I want it?’ This is a big decision, one that you have been
putting off for millions and millions of years. Make that decision. Make that
decision now.

Question: What is that decision?

Papaji: [addressing another man from New Zealand] You wrote to me about
making this decision, and wrote very well. You wrote to me about the origin
of this decision, and how you had postponed making it. You finally decided,
‘This is my own Self’. It was a very beautiful letter, even though it contained
very few words. I asked you to write something, and this is what you came up
with. Words like these come from the source itself. I wanted you to write
from the place where the words originated, and this is what you came up
with. All words, all activities of the intellect come from this source.
Self, Self-realisation, enlightenment, truth, freedom – all these things that
we talk about – what are they, and where are they? Spend some time on this
question and find out the answer for yourself. We started with the idea of
distance: where you are now and how far do you need to go to reach your
goal. This is a very short job. It is your sutra. It is the beginning and the end,
and the whole path is contained within it. There is no distance and no
location, and that means there is no way either. When you know and
understand this, all is finished. Everything will be finished. No distance will
have been travelled.
You told me, ‘I can’t describe it,’ but later on I pushed you to describe it.
It is a description, but at the same time it is not your description.

Question: I was very sick when I wrote that.

Papaji: It’s not ‘your’ description. ‘You’ wrote no description. You told me
yourself, ‘I can’t describe’. Your sutra was ‘Beginning to end’. That was all
you needed. Everything is contained and covered in these three words. There
is no use in looking in books to find the solution to this. You have to find for
yourself that the beginning and the end are the same place.

[The term ‘sutras’ is often used as a generic term for the scriptures, but in
this context a sutra denotes a great spiritual truth or practice that has been
condensed into a brief phrase.]

Question: [new questioner] Is suffering needed to break the infatuation with

the illusion? Do we need to suffer first in order to be inspired to transcend it
by going back to the source?

Papaji: What is suffering? ‘I am not at the source’ is suffering. That’s all. ‘I

am not at home right now’ is suffering.
Imagine you are sleeping very nicely and comfortably in a five-star hotel.
You have had a good dinner and have gone to sleep. The doors are closed. In
your sleep you start to dream. In your dream you find that you have gone
abroad and that you are being attacked by robbers. You are surrounded by
them and in your dream you know that they are going to kill you. That’s your
situation. You are in a terrible mess and you are screaming ‘Help! Help!
Help!’ because you really believe that you are about to die. Who is going to
help you in this situation? Who?
You are really in a five-star hotel, surrounded by many people. Inside that
room you have a phone that could connect you in a few seconds to the
manager or to the security staff. You are in a completely safe environment,
and yet you are suffering acutely on account of your own imagined dream
creation. You are not at your source. You have moved away from it by
identifying with a dream body, and that alone was enough to cause you all
this suffering.
The idea ‘I am the body’ takes you out of your source, and once you
move from that place, suffering, never-ending suffering, is inevitable.
Suffering always begins from the ‘I am the body’ idea. Who has this idea?
The body doesn’t say, ‘I am the body’. Ask it yourself and see what it has to
say for itself. Start from the foot. The foot doesn’t say ‘I am the body’. It
doesn’t even say ‘I am the foot’. It has nothing at all to say on this matter.
You are the one who declares ‘I am the body’.
This attachment to the idea that you are a body arises from spurious
imagination. Imagination made you suffer when you were in a dream body,
safe in a hotel, and imagination makes you suffer when you decide,
erroneously, that you are the body in the waking state. Every time you
imagine something that is not true, you have to suffer the consequences. It is
like the snake and the rope story. When you imagine that the rope is a snake,
you suffer fear, but when you know the truth that it is just a rope, there is no
suffering at all. Believing in imaginary things is your own choice, your own
decision. That means that you can choose not to believe in them as well. You
have to decide yourself whether to believe in imaginary things and concepts
or not.
I am not putting pressure on you to do this, but I will say that at some
point you will have to make this decision. At some point you will have to do
it. It’s a very gentle process. I am speaking of your own source, your own
house. Your Lord is very generous, very patient. You can come home, home
to your Lord and home to your own Self, whenever you want to. There is no
pressure. You will be welcome whenever you choose to return. For now you
can play outside, if that is what you want to do. But when you make that final
decision to come home, you will be made very, very welcome.
I was reading your letter in which you wrote that ‘many years of search
are over, millions of years’. I can tell you how these millions of years will be
accounted for from the standpoint of reality. I told you a few days ago how I
had once seen all my past lives, but I will tell the story again in more detail
because it is very relevant to what I am saying.
I was once on the bank of the Ganga, just sitting there, when I saw the
whole history of my manifestation, how I had passed from the beginning,
moving from life to life in different species. There were all kinds of marine
lives, not just fish – many kinds of marine animals. There were lives as a
rock, lives as plants, lives as animals, including those sea animals, and then
there were many human lives. There were even lives on different planets
where I had a different kind of body and different kinds of thoughts. While
this was going on, I knew that I had been each of these bodies, but I also
knew that I was also this body that was sitting next to the Ganga. I saw all
these lives as I sat there by the Ganga, and as I saw them it seemed as if I was
experiencing the full life span of each of the creatures involved. I cannot
explain this, but if I want to, I can still see what I saw then. There have been
other occasions when I have seen and known my more recent human lives.
At the end of this long series of incarnations I saw an image of my
Master, Ramana Maharshi. He stood before me, and as he stood there, the
sequence of births came to an end. Now, what is strange about all this is that
while I was re-experiencing all these lives at full length – millions of years of
them – the amount of time that passed on the bank of the Ganga was only a
fraction of a second.
When you come home to the Self you will immediately understand that
all the time that seemed to pass while you were experiencing your countless
incarnations was not real. It will seem like an instant of time, and when you
come home and know this directly, you will know this secret and you will
laugh. It looks like a long time when you are experiencing it, but when it
ends, you will know that it was just an expanded imagination that all took
place in an instant of time.
Prior to this experience by the Ganga I had not asked or talked to anyone
about this business of incarnations being compressed into a single instant. I
didn’t discuss it with anyone afterwards either. I had not read about anything
like this in any of the books I had read, so I kept quiet about it. Then, a few
years later, when I was in Paris, I read a Buddhist text in which it was
mentioned that the Buddha had also had this experience. Actually, the book
was read to me. It was in French and someone I knew there read it out to me,
translating as he went. Hearing this similar account somehow satisfied me.
I can now say from my own direct experience that all phenomena take
place in just an instant of time. This is the secret that is revealed to you when
you step out of time. The same thing happens at night. In a dream it might
appear that an enormous amount of time is passing, but when you wake up,
you realise that only a few minutes or seconds have passed since you were
last awake. You can spend a whole lifespan in a dream, and suffer a whole
lifetime of agonies there.
When you finally come home to the Self, you will know who and what
you really are, you will know the true nature of the illusory manifestation that
engrossed you for so long, and when you transcend it, you will know what
true freedom is. In that final resting place you will know that this is where
you really were all along. You will know that you suffered pointlessly by
choosing to believe that you were something and somewhere else. You will
know that you knew this all along, but chose to ignore it. You are ignoring it
now because you don’t believe what I am saying. You are believing your
imagination instead. You will not believe that this is your birthright, that it’s
always here, and that it is always what you are. Nobody believes this, so
everyone carries on making efforts to reach this place where they are already
resting. There are different methods and different ways, but they all boost and
sustain the imagination that makes you believe that you are something other
than what you really are.

Question: The state I wrote about seems to be one of quiet contentment.

There was no urge to run outside and make contact with people or anything
else. It’s hard to explain. I didn’t actually want to do anything at all.

Papaji: This is the time, this is the moment for you to enjoy. Enjoy as much
as you can, and then do whatever you want to. Enjoy! Enjoy!

Question: Enjoy or die?

Papaji: Enjoy! This is enjoyment!

Question: First you told me I must die, and now you are saying that I must
enjoy.

Papaji: They are the same thing; they are not different. You have no need to
control the mind. Do you feel that you have to control your mind?

Question: I don’t know how any more. I just don’t know how.

Papaji: [laughing] Very good! People get lost trying to control the mind by
pranayama and meditation. This is a very correct view, a very correct view.
How simple it is!
I knew a high school student in Bombay. She used to come with her
mother to see me in Bombay. I think she must have been about eighteen or
nineteen at the time.
Once she told me, ‘I use the mind when it is needed, otherwise I leave it
alone. When I don’t need the mind, I don’t engage with any of its thoughts. I
go to school, study, eat and sleep, but I don’t need my mind for any of these
things. However, it’s still there if I need it for anything.’
That’s the right attitude. The mind can be a useful tool, but don’t let it run
or ruin your life.
 27

No one has so far described it, and no one ever will

Question: The three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping, are they part of
the illusion? And if so, what about turiya, the fourth state in which they
appear? Is that also an illusion? Does this turiya come from somewhere?

Papaji: There is some other indescribable state. Turiya still exists in relation
to these three other states that you reject. It has a relationship with this
rejection. Do you understand what I am saying? Since it has a relationship
with these rejected states, it is state itself, and as such, it deserves to be
rejected as well. Beyond them all is turiyatita [beyond the fourth]. That,
nobody understands.
Turiya can still be grasped in some way by the mind. In sleep there is still
some residual awareness that enables you to say, when you wake up, ‘I slept
well. I had a good sleep last night.’ That knowledge, that awareness, comes
from a subtle contact with the fourth state, the turiya in which the three states
of waking, dreaming and sleeping appear and disappear. From the fourth state
one can revert to one of the three states – the next waking state, for example.
There is something utterly beyond these four states that you spend your
time moving through. Something beyond, a place where there are no
changing states or processes at all. That’s the original substratum, the
foundation of all, beyond all concepts. It is not a state like the other four
because it is beyond all states.
The fourth state, turiya, can still be a concept; it can still be something
that you understand and grasp with the mind. The mind can grasp the idea of
something that underlies the three other states and which subsists as an
awareness during deep sleep, but it can have no idea or concept of what lies
beyond or behind that residual awareness.
A sharp intellect can grasp many things, and it can experience many
things, but it cannot touch or understand this turiyatita. People have
experiences. The intellect grasps them and calls them ‘enlightenment’. Most
people make this mistake; they confuse a clear intellectual understanding
with the true experience of that original state in which no understanding is
possible. The true experience has nothing to do with understanding.
Turiyatita is an absolutely virgin experience. No one has so far described it,
and no one ever will. All the sutras are silent about it. No one has ever
spoken of it.

Question: What is the difference between the realisation of a bhakta and the
realisation of a jnani?

Papaji: In bhakti there is always some persistent concept of duality. The idea
of devotion to a divine personal God maintains the element of duality. When
this duality is maintained, it will transport you to the realms of the gods after
you die. There are many descriptions of these heavenly worlds, but they are
all still mental. They are concepts, creations of the mind. Devotees, even
some great saints, believe in these concepts and go to a heaven that accords
with their concepts. These people do not aspire for true freedom in this life
because they have been conditioned to believe in heavenly realms such as
Vaikunta that they will go to when they die. The power of the mind creates
these lokas [worlds], and after physical death it goes there to enjoy them.
There are many different worlds that one can go to after one dies, but they are
all creations of the mind. You can spend millions of years in such places,
enjoying yourself all the time, but that doesn’t mean they are real. The
freedom that I speak of liberates you from the necessity of reappearing in any
of these worlds. This freedom is not spoken of there.

Question: So people who go to these realms eventually have to reincarnate

again? They have to come back to earth and have more lives here?

Papaji: It is very difficult for the desire for freedom to arise in a place where
there is no apparent suffering, where all is happiness and pleasure, where no
aging is taking place. In these divine lokas everything is very fine and very
beautiful. The people there think, ‘This is enough for us. What more do we
need?’ This is why it is so rare for the desire for freedom to arise in such
places. The great bhakti saints – Tukaram, Namdev, Tulsidas, and so on – all
aspired to go to a heavenly realm when they died. They wanted to stay
permanently with the divine through their devotion to that divine. Devotees
who have this intense devotion to God will go to a divine loka and stay there
for thousands of years, but sooner or later they will have to return here if they
want true freedom.

Question: What about Meerabai? Was she like this? Didn’t she change in the
end?

Papaji: She changed her attitude and outlook in the end, and so did several
other saints.
Meerabai was a former queen and a mystic poet. She renounced her royal
privileges and went to live in the forest. She became so famous, the emperor
of India came to hear about her and wanted to see her.
He asked his prime minister to arrange a meeting, but the prime minister
told him, ‘She will not see you if you go as an emperor. She has already
rejected all the trappings of royalty and has gone to live in Vrindavan. She is
living there like a beggar, singing ecstatic songs to God. She has a divine
madness. Sometimes she lives in a tree, sometimes she travels, and sometime
she just sings to God. I have a suggestion, though. We can go there in
disguise. You could come with me in the dress of my servant.’
The king agreed to this proposal and they both set off to look for Meera in
the forests of Vrindavan. After a long search they found her. As they
approached they saw that she was in a state of ecstasy with her eyes closed.
They sat there for an hour, waiting for her to come out of this state. When she
finally opened her eyes and looked in their direction, the emperor realised
that he had never seen such an inner beauty before. She was glowing with
purity, and he felt this inner beauty radiating out of her. The peace that was
flowing out of her body made the emperor very happy indeed. Now, when a
king is happy, it is his nature to give out a reward to whoever has caused him
to be happy. He forgot that he was supposed to be a servant. His hand
automatically went under his robe, and he pulled out a diamond necklace
which he offered to Meera. Meera, who had once been a queen herself, knew
that only the emperor could possess such a necklace.
‘I have thrown away all stones such as these,’ she said. ‘I can’t accept
them.’
The emperor prostrated before her and left.
This is how she spent her life, not caring for anything, living in the forest
and subsisting on whatever food came her way.
I have read one thing though, one thing that made me think that she
eventually gave up her devotion to her personal God. There is a poem she
wrote which says, ‘At last I have found a bed, a bed on which my beloved
has spread himself. Now I am going to sleep.’
I will tell you more about this poem in a few minutes. First though, I have
to explain about her background. She had spent her whole life loving
Krishna. Her devotion dated back to when she was seven years old. She saw
a marriage procession going down the street, and she asked her mother what
was going on. In India the bridegroom goes on horseback to the house of his
bride. This was the procession that she had just seen.
Her mother said, ‘He is the groom. He is on his way to get married.’
Meera than asked, ‘Who is my groom?’ and her mother replied ‘Krishna’.
In that moment her love for Krishna was kindled, and for the rest of her
life she loved no one else.
Now, going back to that poem, she uses the word ‘nirgun’ there. Nirgun
means formless. She says that her beloved is nirgun, and that the bed is
nirgun as well. She says, ‘Now I am going to share a bed with the formless
and there will no longer be any separation’.
This is what she said, and I think that this is the end of the story. This is
called freedom. Reading this, I thought that this was where her bhakti ended.
Other saints have written similar ideas in their poems. I have read a verse
by Tukaram that indicated that the same thing happened to him, but it is not
as clear as this verse of Meerabai.
The story of Kabir is also interesting. He started off as a Ram bhakta,
primarily because his Guru was a Ram bhakta. His Guru, Ramananda, was a
brahmin who would not accept anyone who was not a brahmin as a disciple.
Kabir, who was not a brahmin, was convinced that Ramananda was the only
man who was qualified to be his Guru, and he was determined to get diksha
[initiation] from him. However, to get the initiation he desired, he had to trick
Ramananda into giving it to him.
 Ramananda used to come to the ghats in Varanasi to have a bath in the
early morning, when it was still dark. Kabir decided that he would lie down
on the steps on Ramananda’s route and hope that Ramananda would
accidentally step on him. He would take this accidental touch to be his
initiation. Kabir’s plan worked and Ramananda stepped on him in the dark
the next morning. When Ramananda stepped on this unexpected object
beneath his feet, he spontaneously said ‘Ram, Ram’. Kabir took that to be an
initiation to chant the name of Ram. From that moment on, the name of Ram
was always on his lips and in his mind.
Kabir was a weaver by profession. Sometimes the threads on his loom
would break and he would have to stop the weaving to make repairs. He
noticed that this repair work demanded so much concentration, his flow of
Ram japa would temporarily stop or slow down. He appealed to Ram to help
him with this problem.
Ram physically appeared before him and said, ‘You carry on with your
japa, and I will take care of the repairs and the weaving’.
And that’s what happened. When the threads or the fabric of his work
broke and needed repairs, Kabir would just ignore them and carry on with his
japa. Ram would do his weaving and repair work while Kabir would
continue with his japa. A point was reached when Kabir was doing the japa
automatically, twenty-four hours a day. When you reach this stage, the name
begins to chant itself without any volition from the chanter, and it continues
as an undercurrent in all the three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping.
Despite having this background, there are several instances in Kabir’s
poems where he indicates that he transcended his dualistic devotion to Ram
and attained the final, liberating experience that was beyond this dualistic
relationship.
In one verse he says, ‘Kabir says that it is good that he has forgotten the
name of Ram. It was a ghost that was hanging on me all my life. Now I am
free. Now I am free. I have returned to my nature. I am now as I was.’
Now, this seemed quite clear to me, but Kabir’s poems are written in an
old dialect that I can’t read very well. When I was in Varanasi with some
foreigners, I went to the Kabir Math there to see if they had any experts who
could shed any new light on these intriguing lines. I knew they were all
bhaktas there, but I thought there might be someone who could give me an
honest explanation of what the original words meant.
The head priest was very old. He looked as if he was in his nineties.
When I spoke to him about this problematic verse, he said he didn’t even
know the lines I was referring to, but he did tell me that there was a sastri, a
pandit, who was in the math. He thought that this man could probably help
me. A scholar from Benares Hindu University was also there, collecting and
researching Kabir material for a book that he was going to bring out in Hindi.
I spoke to both the pandit and the university scholar about these lines, but
it soon became clear that they wanted to interpret them in a dualistic way.
Neither would accept that Kabir had transcended his Ram bhakti and left his
mantra behind. The meaning was clear to me, but they tried to cover it up
with a dualistic interpretation. Even the foreigners, who were from Australia,
could see that they were twisting the words to suit their own particular
preferred philosophy. They complained to these scholars and had a bit of an
argument about their interpretations.
Ultimately one has to arrive at the Self and abide there in a non-dualistic
way. There cannot be two selves, one who worships and another who is
worshipped. You can call the Self ‘Ram’ if you want to. If it serves your
purpose and gets you closer to the Self, you can give it any name you like.
Even ‘Self’ is just a name. It is not the reality of what the name indicates.
This final place has no name of its own. You cannot think about it, and you
cannot feel it in any way. It is beyond thought and feeling.
 28

Find the thoughtlessness that is there between

thoughts

Papaji: [flipping through one of his old diaries in which some addresses had
been written] This page came from a man who had read about me in an old
Urdu article that had been published in Punjab. It had been printed years
before, but on the strength of it he came to Ramanasramam looking for me.
They gave him my address, and he eventually caught up with me. This
language is Persian and I will translate what it says: ‘In this class of love
there is a very strange rule. He who has done his work is not allowed to go
home.’
Don’t you understand? In an ordinary school, when you have completed
your work, the teacher tells you that you can go home. In this school of love,
divine love, when you have mastered the subject, you have to stay. For the
rest of your life you will never be allowed to leave. This is what happens in
the class of love where true love is taught.

Question: You will never want to leave.

Papaji: You will be involved more and more, and you will never be free to
leave and go back to where you came from. Very nice.
[Turning to someone else] Are you working on your meditation? On what
do you have to meditate? Meditate on that which is beyond any kind of
perception, or even imagination. Meditate on that which is beyond both
perception and imagination.

Question: When imagination comes in, what does one do?

Papaji: That’s what I am saying. Meditate on that which is beyond

imagination. Liberate the mind from clinging to any perception or
imagination.

Question: Yes, I think I understand what you are saying. The past does come
in. Then what happens?

Papaji: OK, the past is coming. While you are meditating, the past is
coming. It will come in the form of a thought, won’t it? One thought will
come, followed by another, and then a whole train of thought will follow.
Pick up that one thought, the first one, when it comes. I am telling you not to
meditate on imagination, but this imagination is still coming. When that
thought comes, just look at it and tell me what happens to it.

Question: It goes away.

Papaji: So that’s a simple solution. And then?

Question: Another thought replaces it.

Papaji: I asked you to look at this thought that appeared in front of you, and I
asked you what happened when you looked. You said it disappeared. Then,
you say, another thought takes its place. Now, between the disappearance of
the first thought and the appearance of the second there must be some gap,
some space. Look at this empty space. The first thought has stopped and the
second has not yet arrived. Look at this space. Be quick! Do it now! Don’t
waste time! Be quick and tell me what is there.

Question: There’s nothing.

Papaji: It’s finished. Look again. The previous thought has gone. Look at
where it went. Look at that disappearance. You have to do it. Do it again and
again and you have won the game. Do this properly and the other thoughts
will not come. These thoughts are sheep. They will not come out and bleat
while they know that the butcher is there.

Question: What’s the difference between doing this and suppressing

thoughts?
Papaji: This is not suppressing.

Question: But what is the difference between suppressing and nothingness?

Papaji: I am not allowing you to suppress. Suppression is for yogis. That is

not the way that I teach. I am teaching you to accept whatever comes. If a
thought comes, accept it. Look at the process. A thought arises inside you.
Accept it. Now this thought has to disappear to give room for other thoughts
to come. Let it go. Don’t try to hold onto it, and don’t try to suppress it. Make
use of the letting go. As you watch it disappear, be aware of the
thoughtlessness that replaces it when it disappears. Give some time to this.
Find the thoughtlessness that is there between thoughts. This thoughtlessness
is not suppression; it is your nature. When you follow the path of
suppression, you get strangled in thought. I am not telling you to do this at
all. Thoughts come and thoughts go. When thoughts go, in the gap before the
next one arises, you are truly yourself. It is not suppression. It is returning to
your own Self.

Question: So in this method one is not to try to find out who or what is doing
the thinking?

Papaji: I am saying, if thoughts come, let them come. Whatever they are, let
them come.

Question: It doesn’t matter if they come, or what they are like?

Papaji: Whatever they are, let them come. They have come to play with you.
It doesn’t matter what they are. Let them come and play. If you play soccer or
tennis, you just play. You run around for a while, enjoying the movement of
the ball, and then it’s over. Nobody stays on the tennis court or the soccer
pitch when the game is over. Everyone goes home. The winner goes home
and the loser goes home. The game is over and everyone disperses.
Everyone has to return to emptiness. This is the place of rest, and this is
your real nature. Just don’t forget it. These things are here to enjoy. Enjoy
them, and then go home. Who tells you not to enjoy them? But don’t let them
get their enjoyment out of you. You can enjoy them, but don’t let them enjoy
you.

Question: Do you suggest that in ordinary life people such as myself should
have a period each day for this kind of meditation?

Papaji: One should always be meditating. With each breath and in each
moment, meditate.

Question: When I am walking, sitting…

Papaji: Yes. Whatever is happening: sitting, living, dying. Now you must
ask the next obvious question – ‘Why?’ I will answer it for you before you
ask. ‘This is your nature. This is your nature.’ That’s why I am saying that in
each moment, each second, meditation should be going on. It’s your natural
state. You are naturally meditating all the time, but your problem is, you deny
it.

Question: Why?

Papaji: When you look at the ‘I’, you are in meditation. When you are not
looking at the ‘I’, you are denying that you are meditating. Who is denying?
It is the ‘I’ that you are not looking at which is doing the denying. Hold onto
this ‘I’ so that it can neither deny nor accept. When is ‘I’ not ‘I’?

Question: When it causes no problems to me. There is no ‘I’ when it causes

me no problem.

Papaji: ‘I’ is there all the time. This ‘I’ is your real nature. You don’t have to
meditate to return to ‘I’. You are ‘I’ itself.

Question: But it’s not the Self when it’s causing suffering?

Papaji: The Self doesn’t cause suffering. It is the ego that causes suffering. ‘I
am so and so.’ When the ego decides it is ‘someone’, suffering starts. When
you are ‘I’ alone, there is no suffering. ‘I’ becomes ‘Tim’ and suffering
begins. You wake up in the morning. Who wakes up? Tim wakes up. The
first breath of the morning will wake up Tim. Then, all manifestation will
appear and simultaneously with it suffering will arise. Let ‘I’ stay by itself
and you will not suffer. Suffering is always related to other things, other
circumstances that belong to the past. Suffering is connected with the past.
Let us go back to the beginning of our conversation. One thought has
disappeared and the other has not yet come. If you look at and stay in that gap
between the thoughts, what kind of suffering can there be? No suffering can
enter there. No suffering can be experienced there. Just look at it. We suffer
because we don’t pay attention to this.
 29

This is a fathomless ocean, a fathomless ocean

Question: Freedom is a desireless state, but I have sometimes heard you say
that there is sometimes a desire to realise the freedom more fully once it has
been experienced. So, this state is not completely without desire.

Papaji: Ah, that’s a good subject. Not one that we can discuss, but still, it is a
good subject. It is too sacred to be discussed, but I still like it.

[Pause]

I’m searching for some words. Allow me a few moments to search for
some words.

[Another long pause]

You are right. Desire is there. Always, always, there is this constant
desire. After freedom it still persists.
Freedom enables you to erase manifestation from the mind. In that
moment you enter the unmanifest. From the unmanifest this desire arises. It is
an impulse to seek beyond. This is a fathomless ocean, a fathomless ocean. It
is beyond all concepts. It is consciousness itself and no one has ever
measured its depth. Even in emptiness, even in this state of what one might
call ‘unmanifestation’ some impulse arises to go beyond even this
‘unmanifestation’, beyond this freedom.
When you win freedom, what you have won is freedom from bondage, or
rather, freedom from the concept of bondage, since bondage is wholly
imaginary. Someone imagines he is bound, thinks he is in the thrall of
samsara, of endless births and deaths, and so within him arises this desire for
freedom. Freedom doesn’t destroy bondage, which has no real existence, it
just destroys the concept of bondage. Bondage was a concept, and while you
still believed in it, freedom from bondage was the other concept that was
associated with it. Freedom is freedom from both concepts. However, it is not
enough to free oneself from this concept that is the cycle of samsara. In some
rare cases a desire will arise to go beyond this freedom itself. Is this what
your question is? Is this your question? Are you asking about how to jump
beyond freedom?

Question: I don’t know, Papaji. I think my question is coming from a more

simple place. It’s just that.…

Papaji: Yes, it is this simple place that I am talking about. There is nothing
to do there. Its nature is spontaneous. There may be some effort where you
are now because you are holding onto some concept, and that needs effort.
You may be holding onto ‘freedom’, worrying that you may lose it if you
don’t safeguard it properly. You may be thinking, ‘I must not do this’, or ‘I
should not proceed in that way because if I do I may lose this freedom’. In
this state you are involved in fear and thought. However, when you return to
your natural state there is no fear of loss, no idea of further gain. That’s the
spontaneous state that is termed ‘sahaja sthiti’. ‘Sahaja’ means ‘natural’ and
‘sthiti’ means ‘state’.
Your desire for freedom may win you freedom, but once that freedom has
been won, ‘you’ are out of the picture. When there is no person left, there is
also no one who can have a desire. So, when this desire arises within this
state of freedom, this desire that wants to take you even further, it is not a
personal desire. You are not involved in it. It arises from within, from within
itself. It is a revelation within itself, for itself, to itself. You can call it a
‘revelation’, but I can’t really think of a good word for this. In that revelation
everything will be revealed. You will discover the hidden secrets. This desire
will win you the secret and show you what it is.

Question: [new questioner] I am new here. Do you have any advice on how I
can make the best use of this precious moment in time?

Papaji: Not giving rise to the question is making the best use of this time.
Leave this ‘precious moment’ alone. Don’t let anything arise in it. It is so
immaculate, it should not be tainted by any kind of imposition. It should not
be ‘this way’ or ‘that way’. It’s so immaculate, so pure, so chaste, nothing
can trespass on it. Leave it alone.
It is your own Self. It is not a stranger. This is your own being, your own
Self. If you want some advice, I will give it to you: dive into it. You have to
dive into it, and merge in it once and for all. Right now the advisor and the
advised are speaking on the bank of the river. Let go of both of them, and
jump into the river. A stern, sincere and honest desire is enough to do this.

Question: Stern?

Papaji: S-T-E-R-N. Don’t you use this word in New Zealand?

Question: Yes, yes, very much [laughter], but we don’t like the idea much.
Does ‘stern’ mean ‘in a disciplined way’?

Papaji: When you want to get this thing, have a stern desire to attain it. What
discipline do you need? Throw away all the disciplines. Disciplines are the
opposite of what I am talking about. Go inside and win the hand of the bride.
Don’t listen to anyone else. All these other things are in your mind. Cancel
all your other programmes. This is the stern desire you must have. Have it
once. That’s all you need. Have it once in any incarnation. You have already
spent thirty-five million years just to reach the point where you are now
giving rise to this question. That’s enough! More than enough! You have
attained a human birth, which is the auspicious birth for this desire to arise.
You were born in good circumstances, in a country which allowed you to
have this desire. There are many places, many countries where you are not
allowed to have this desire. In some places they will stone you if you talk
about things like this. There are parts of the world where it is prohibited to
stand up in public and say ‘I want freedom!’ There are countries that don’t
allow this, and there are religions that don’t allow it either. You are lucky.
You come from an independent country, from a society that allows you to
think like this. Your parents have allowed it, and you yourself have given
yourself permission to follow this desire. What an auspicious conjunction of
events has brought you here! You have a mountain of merits. You don’t need
anything else. Enough!
This desire for freedom will only come when you have a mountain of
merits. When you have won this mountain, then and only then will this desire
arise. Then, when this desire arises, keep quiet and watch. That’s all. Put it
into practice. When this desire arises, wait, watch and keep alert. That’s all
you have to do. See for yourself and give me the result. Don’t disturb
yourself. Wait a few seconds. Just a few seconds and watch. That’s all you
need to do.
Freedom is clear of all moralities and disciplines. These belong to the
religions that promise you heaven or hell and make you live in fear. If you
don’t abide by the rules, you go to hell. If you do, you go to heaven. And
what kind of heaven is being promised? Just enjoyment – wine, women, and
so on. These are the promises they try to make you believe.
 30

Your acts of concentration and meditation leave

footprints

Question: I come from a Buddhist background. Would you call the teachings
of the Buddha a religion?

Papaji: Buddhism really means ‘enlightenment’.

Question: So you think it has been corrupted in some way?

Papaji: I think so. The Buddha himself taught enlightenment. He worked for
many years to get it, following many disciplines. In the end he found it by
himself, after rejecting all the disciplines. He went to all the places where
disciplines were enjoined, and one by one he rejected them all. ‘This is not
the way. This is not what I am looking for.’ He moved on, rejecting
everything he came across. In the end he just sat down under a tree and found
it by himself. What observances did he follow there? He just had a sincere
desire for freedom, nothing more. If you want to, you can call this a
discipline. I just call it a strong desire for freedom.
Don’t let the past disturb the present. Look at this present moment. Be in
it without any thought of the past intruding.

Question: Let the past go?

Papaji: We talked about this yesterday. I said, ‘Look at a thought, any

thought that appears before you, and tell me what happens’. Thoughts come
from the past. Let a thought come from the past. Look at it and it will
disappear. You yourself said this happened when you tried it. When the past
disappears, the disappearance stays. Now look at the disappearance.

Question: Thank you.

Papaji: That’s all you need to do. It’s simple work. A thought comes. Look
at it. Look at the last thought that came. You did this and then said that it
disappeared. The thought came, stayed for a while, you looked at it, and it
disappeared. That much was very clear. Now what is it that remains? The
disappearance is there because you can no longer see the thought. Thought
disappeared and emptiness is there. Now you have to look at the emptiness.
An object was there, a thought object. You looked at it and it left. Fine. It
has gone. Now there is the absence of the object. Look at the absence. Look
at the emptiness itself. The next thought is not coming because just emptiness
is there.

Question: There is just a momentary awareness.

Papaji: OK, you can call it ‘momentary’. I like this word ‘momentary’. It’s
very good. Now, there is momentary awareness. Just awareness. We’ll deal
with this awareness. A thought has disappeared, emptiness has disappeared,
and awareness is just there. Awareness is there now.

Question: Then another thought comes in.

Papaji: No! No! Now we will have to start again, right from the beginning.
Let’s not repeat this endlessly. A thought came, you looked at the thought, it
disappeared, and you looked at the disappearance. Then you said there was a
‘momentary awareness’. Now we will work from this momentary awareness.
How can any other thought come when this awareness is there?

Question: I could say, ‘By constant identification’, but I don’t really know.

Papaji: You say, ‘I don’t know’. There cannot be any other knower, a
knower of awareness. There cannot be any other awareness to know that
awareness. One awareness is enough. Is awareness witnessed by another
awareness? I don’t think that this is reasonable. To see the sun, do you need
another sun? Do you need to hold up a lit candle to see where the sun is? You
don’t need to because this sun is light itself. To see something else you need
the light of the sun or some artificial light, but the sun itself doesn’t need to
be illumined by some other light. It is light itself. Awareness is the same. You
don’t need anything else to be aware of awareness. Awareness is itself aware.
There is nothing else that can be aware of awareness.

Question: No effort is needed to be aware?

Papaji: What kind of effort do you need to be aware?

Question: Don’t I have to concentrate on it, to put my attention on it in some

way?

Papaji: Concentration is needed when you need to know something that is

imaginary. When you need to imagine something, then you have to
concentrate. Right now, I am sitting in front of you. Your eyes are looking at
me. You can see me directly through these eyes without any effort or
concentration. Do you need to make any great effort of concentration to see
me? Just look at me. How much effort does that need?

Question: Yes, I see.

Papaji: How much concentration are you utilising when you look at me?
How much?

Question: There is a concentration that comes from awareness.

Papaji: No. Look at me. I am now looking at this object, my glasses. How
much concentration do I need just to look at these glasses?

Question: You need a desire to look at the glasses, an intention. Some

thought has to happen before this looking happens.

Papaji: My intention to look at the glasses is no longer there. Now there is

just awareness, Now there are just eyes looking at the glasses. My eyes are
there, and they are looking at things. What meditation do I need to look
without any desire? What meditation? What concentration? If you want to
imagine something that you want to see, then you will need some
concentration. You will have to close your eyes and put all your mental
energy into an image of the thing you are concentrating on. But for direct
seeing, you don’t need any of this. You just look.
This awareness doesn’t even need to be seen. You don’t even need to
point your eyes in that direction. This awareness is there even prior to the act
of seeing. In fact, if you want to see, that awareness is needed to activate the
eyes and make them register objects. You need awareness even to look
through the eyes because this looking is an activity of the mind and the
senses. There is an interaction between the mind and the senses, between the
‘I’ and the object. Some small subtle effort is needed for this, but to be
simply aware, no effort at all is needed.
You say that you need to concentrate a little to know or find this
awareness. You are thinking, ‘I will know this awareness through
concentrating on it’. If you want to concentrate on this thing called
awareness, then awareness itself is what you will use to do the focusing. The
awareness will activate the mind and point it in a particular direction, towards
the object you are meditating on.
You think, ‘I am executing all the activities in the world’, but the truth is,
it is this awareness that is sustaining all this activity. Once you have
understood that all this is going on in awareness, and is sustained by it, you
are free of all the activities in this world. It may look as if you are doing
things, but you are not doing, and you know it. You know that it is this
awareness that is doing everything.
When you know that it is awareness and not ‘you’ which performs all the
activities, there will be no footprints left in your memory. You will
accumulate no more prarabdha; there will be no more karma to produce
another birth. This is how you end samsara.
Your acts of concentration and meditation leave footprints. You make
memories with them, and these memories are samsara. You will accumulate
karma, and this karma will result in your being reborn. It is a never-ending
cycle, and it is all your creation. It can be checked at any time if you are
aware because in that awareness everything will burn like fire.
You have to return back to who you really are. If you go back to ‘I am
awareness’, everything collapses, the whole game of manifestation and
samsara collapses. When this happens, this is called freedom. I therefore say
that you don’t have to make any effort to attain it. It’s there all the time,
supporting everything that you do or say.
 Those who have a sharp understanding, a very sharp understanding, may
get it. Some will understand, and some never will. Some will understand in
an instant, in the time it takes to snap a finger. It will be a moment that is out
of time, not even a sixtieth part of a second. The awareness is always there,
but who is going to see it? No time is needed for this. Why should time be
needed to know awareness? Some may see it in an instant; some may take
years; some may take a whole lifetime; and some have been trying for thirty-
five million years. Some instantly see and understand just by hearing a word
from the teacher. One word from the teacher and all is over. I don’t know
how this happens and what it depends on. That’s why I don’t fix any
preconditions. I don’t give you moral rules. That’s for the religions to do. I
say, ‘No disciplines’. I say, ‘No yoga’. There is nowhere that you need to go.
You don’t need churches, pilgrimages or dips in holy waters. None of these
things is going to help you. You may go to the Himalayas. You may go to
any shrine. You may go to any god. But none of these things is going to help
you. I am very sure about this. You have to face your own Self.
If you want to ignore this, you can go instead to see four-headed Brahma
in the heavens, but he can’t do anything to help you because he himself is
bound. He himself is waiting for liberation. All the gods are waiting for their
own liberation. The best god, the best place, the best church, the best temple
– all of these things are very close to you. The difficulty arises because they
are much too near to see. Because they are so close, you don’t pay attention.
It’s too easy for you. You want it to be a problem. You want some difficulty
in your search, but what you are looking for is there all the time. It is hiding
behind your breath. Look at it now. Where is the breath situated? How many
miles away from you is your own breath? It is hiding behind the retina. Just
turn inside and look behind the retina and see that place that gives light to the
eyes, gives them the power to see. No one ever talks about this. No one has
told you this before. There is a place behind the retina from where the retina
gets the power to see the whole of manifestation. That’s all you need to
know. Just look there. Not by yoga, not by yagnas, not by prayers, not by
charities, not by pilgrimages, not by holy dips can you ever attain it. This
place I am speaking of is the holiest of the holies. Having one bath in it is
quite enough. And what is that bath? This very holy bath is when thought is
absent and no longer pollutes. Have a bath in this Ganga, in this holy water,
this place where thought does not enter.

Question: [new questioner] What did you learn from the Buddha? What did
he teach you?

Papaji: He didn’t teach me anything. I just read about him in a history book.
I was in the eighth class, maybe thirteen years old. I saw a picture of him and
immediately fell in love with it. I had never seen such a beautiful person. It
was the beauty that caught me. It was not a traditional beauty because the
picture was of the Buddha when he was starving himself. He was a skin-
covered skeleton, so thin I could count all the bones. This was my concept of
beauty at the time, and this is what attracted me.
I thought to myself, ‘This man is very handsome. This man is very
beautiful,’ but I had no idea what he was doing. I had no idea why he was
sitting cross-legged with all his bones protruding. It seemed that his body was
dead.
I loved this picture so much, I decided I would try to become like this
man who was depicted in it. Since I had no idea what he was doing or why he
was doing it, the only way I could imitate him was to become as thin as he
was. I stopped eating at home. I would take food from my mother, go out
onto the street with it and feed it to the dogs. I wanted to become thin like
this man I had fallen in love with. I managed to do this for two or three
months, all the time getting thinner and thinner. When my classmates noticed
that my bones were starting to stick out, like the man in the photo, they gave
me the nickname ‘Buddha’ because they too had seen this picture in our
history book.
Once I had become thin, I looked for new ways to imitate the Buddha. I
saw that he was sitting cross-legged, with his eyes closed, so I started doing
that as well. I had no idea what meditation was. I had not learned anything
about meditation or concentration or liberation. I had never come across any
of these concepts. I just started to sit cross-legged, with my eyes closed,
without understanding what the Buddha had been doing.
After that I decided I should change my clothes in order to look more like
the Buddha. Since he was wearing a robe, I had to have a robe. I stole one of
my mother’s saris, hid it in some papers, and wore it in the street when no
one was looking. By this time I had learned a little more about the Buddha’s
lifestyle. I knew that he used to beg for his food and preach in public, so I
started to do this as well. I used to put on my mother’s sari, go to the clock
tower in Lyalpur, which is where all the public meetings took place, and give
lectures there.
One of my neighbours spotted me and told my mother what I had been
doing. My mother had had no idea what I had been up to until this neighbour
came and told her. When she found out, I had to give back the sari and stop
all these imitation-Buddha activities.
Where did all these desires and activities come from? Nobody told me
anything about the Buddha. How did such thoughts arise in me? I wasn’t
practising any discipline. All these things came naturally, by themselves.
There was no desire to attain anything by doing all these things. Even that
desire was absent. I just fell in love with this man. That’s all.
 31

Investigating and analysing your beliefs will not

help you unless you choose as the subject for your
examination the ego that has all these beliefs

Question: Is it ever useful to deal with specific beliefs and feelings? To look
at them and analyse them, as opposed to asking ‘Who believes this?’ or,
‘Who is thinking this?’ Is it ever actually useful to deal with specific beliefs?

Papaji: Your beliefs are all contingent on the ‘I am the doer’ idea. So long as
that is there, you will have beliefs and feelings. This doer is the ego. The ego
is the entity that says, ‘I am doing this; I am thinking this; I am believing
that’.
The first belief that arises is the ‘I am the body’ idea. It’s just a belief, an
idea. No one thinks or believes ‘I am awareness’. No one speaks like this.
Everyone says ‘I am the body’ instead. Everything starts from this body idea.
When you say ‘I’, you are always referring to this body and not to the
awareness. When you say, ‘I have done that; I am doing this; I will do that’,
you are referring to the activities of the body. And when you think, ‘This is
my relationship’, or ‘This is someone I am related to’, again, this is
something that you think and believe in because you assume that you are the
body. All the ideas you have about yourself and the world have, as their root,
this conviction that you are a body, or inside a body. Once this belief is
established, if it goes unchallenged, you will start to live and discriminate
with this false idea as your foundation. This is ignorance. It is this ignorance
that you want to use as the basis for your investigations into these ‘specific
beliefs’ that you are talking about.
All these identifications, and all the things that go with them, are for
ignorant people. All the books and all the sutras are for ignorant people, not
for the wise. Discipline is for these same ignorant people. Once you have
recognised who you are, once you have made the correct identification, ‘I am
awareness; I am not the garments it wears,’ then everything else will go. It
will just collapse. Once you know, ‘I am not the T-shirt or any other garment
that I wear’, you will know ‘I am awareness’. But if instead you become a
body, you have to suffer.
This false identification has massive and painful consequences. When ‘I
am the body’ is the basis for your thoughts and actions, manifestation arises,
and while it is there, it will become your reality. Hell will be there; heaven
will be there; the gods will be there; religions will be there. All these things
will be true and real to you for as long as you think that you are the body.
Investigating and analysing your beliefs will not help you unless you
choose as the subject for your examination the ego that has all these beliefs.
Look at this ego. Don’t allow it to make a whole universe for you. Instead of
thinking, ‘I am this body’, tell yourself ‘I am consciousness’. You have to
make a choice between the two. You have to choose where you are going to
live your life from: from the ego or from consciousness.
Consciousness is needed to do all the things that you do in life, but you
are ignorant of this. You think the doer, the ego, is in charge and that it
carries out all the actions that you decide to do. This is ignorance. It is an
identification with all the pictures that appear on the screen, and not with the
underlying screen onto which all the pictures are projected. You are seeing a
picture that is projected on the screen and you are saying, ‘This is me. This is
who I am.’ The screen itself, consciousness, is the underlying support of all
the pictures that appear on it. You are that screen, and not all the images that
appear and disappear on it. The screen is absolutely untouched and
unaffected by all the images that appear upon it. You are identifying with one
of these pictures by saying ‘This image is me’, and once you do this, you
suffer whenever that picture gets involved in some drama.
Wars are going on; romances are going on; dances are going on. All these
things are projected onto the screen. If you think you are a body – one of
these flickering images on the screen – you will identify with all the things
that this screen-body is going through, but when you know that you are the
screen, the awareness that is untouched by all the pictures that appear within
it, you will not suffer any more.
The light that is this awareness is not affected by any of these pictures.
They can be there or they can be absent. It makes no difference to the
awareness. It is untouched by the actions of these images, and it is equally
untouched if they are not there at all. We may meditate, but the light is not
affected by this. We may speak, but the light is not affected. We may sleep,
but the light is not affected. This light, this consciousness, is there all the
time. It is the animating force that makes the images appear and which also
causes them to interact with each other, but you are not aware of this because
you have this stubborn conviction, ‘I am the body that is engaging in all these
things. I am the person who decides what this body will do.’
We see each other through the light of the sun, but we are so busy looking
at each other, and interacting with each other, we forget that this is only
possible because the sun is there. In the same way, awareness is there all the
time as the background against which this whole drama of manifestation
takes place. We make use of it, but we never bother to find out what it is, or
where it comes from. Instead of finding out what this awareness is, and what
our relationship with it is, we misappropriate it and attribute all the actions
that the body performs to some imaginary ‘I’ that we claim lives inside a
body.
When you allow this invented ‘I’ to take charge of your life, you will be
responsible for all the actions that the body performs, and you will have to
harvest the consequences of all the deeds that you imagine that you are
performing. Everything will be on your own shoulders, and it will be a great
burden that you carry with you from life to life. But if you know and
understand that it is this light, this awareness, that is animating you, and that
it is this light which is really performing all your actions, then you no longer
have any personal responsibility for the actions that the body is doing. Just be
the instrument for this consciousness to do its work through. Let your body
act according to its dictates. Know that you are just an instrument. If you live
in consciousness, as consciousness, without claiming anything – such as a
body – as ‘mine’, you will live a very free life. You will be freedom itself.
You will live very well, very happily, knowing that you are the underlying
consciousness, and not any of the petty dramas that manifest within it.
Suffering may be there; happiness may be there. As they come to you or
leave you, you will not be bothered or elated because you will know and live
in the truth that is the underlying consciousness.
 [There was then a discussion between Papaji and several people in the
room about a foreign woman who was in Lucknow and who was suffering
from some sort of mental disorder. She seemed to be alternating between
rambling incoherently and bouts of depression. He asked Surendra, his son,
to visit her to check up on her condition.]

Papaji: I don’t think it is a serious problem. Some problem has come to her
mind. When I spoke to her she was speaking about many different
unconnected things.

Question: Sometimes she seems to be aware of what is going on around her,

but at other times she is not.

Papaji: Yes, she was rambling. Her mind was in many different places.

Question: Sometimes she seems to know very well what she is talking about.
She knows that something odd has happened to her mind. She thinks clearly
for a while, but then her face changes and she is no longer aware of what
state she is in.

Papaji: I saw many cases like this in Europe. When something like this
happens, I generally advise people to go to the beach. Unwanted thoughts are
demanding attention, and the simplest solution is often a change of scenery in
which new impressions crowd out the old thoughts. These people become
obsessed with old thoughts; they cannot forget them.
[Speaking to Surendra:] Take her to the hospital, the civil hospital. You
know lots of people there. You can arrange to have her treated there, if she
needs it.
[Speaking to everyone else:] I knew a thirteen-year-old girl who got into
a state like this. Her brother used to come to my satsangs, so he asked me for
help.
‘She’s in the mental hospital. I can bring her here, though. She is not
locked up.’
I told him, ‘If she is not behaving aggressively, you can bring her to
satsang, but I don’t want her to disrupt proceedings here’.
Her brother said, ‘Well, at times she does get very excited and aggressive.
I can’t guarantee that she will behave herself if she comes.’
‘In that case,’ I replied, ‘bring her before the satsang starts. I will meet
with her in private.’
The girl was brought to me and my first impression was that she was a
healthy young girl.
She spoke good English, but she was in a very agitated state. The first
thing she did when she saw me was to shout, ‘That guy cheated me! That guy
cheated me!’
I immediately understood what was going on. She was just obsessed with
a boy who had ended a relationship with her.
I told the brother, ‘She doesn’t belong in a hospital. Take her out for long
walks along the beach. Try and find this boy she is angry with and get him to
talk to her. The mechanisms of her brain have become overloaded because
she can’t deal with or process all these thoughts she is having about this boy.’
The brother knew who the boy was, but he had already found himself a
new girlfriend. The brother persuaded him to come and visit, without the new
girlfriend, and after a few minutes the raging energy in the girl’s brain started
to subside. She recognised him, and the shock of seeing him again jolted her
out of her state.
I met someone else who had a problem like this when I went to New
York. What’s that place you go to from New York through a tunnel under the
river?

Question: New Jersey?

Papaji: Yes, that’s the place. He was a big, strong, healthy nineteen year old.
I met him at a gym where he was doing chest expansions with big weights. I
knew his parents. At that time he was in a healthy condition, both physically
and mentally, but about a year later he got involved in a relationship drama
and committed suicide by jumping into the river. His parents wrote and told
me.
Sometimes these youthful obsessions are focused on better objects or
goals. I met a girl in Rishikesh who had left home while she was still at
school and come to India to win enlightenment.
 She had told her parents, ‘I am going to India to get enlightened. I need to
go now because as soon as I finish school, you will want to send me off to
university. I will take a year off, and when I come back I will go back to
school.’ She was only sixteen years old but she had travelled all the way from
the West to India by herself because she had this strong desire to get
enlightened. How many people have the desire and the courage to do
something like that while they are still at school?
She was staying at the Lakshman Jhula Hotel, but once she got to know
me, she used to come and sit with me all day. How does something like this
happen? It’s old samskaras, habits and inclinations left over from some other
life. Why else would a girl so young give up her life in the West and come to
India?
 32

This is the ultimate and final truth: there is no

bondage, no liberation, and no one even aspiring
for liberation

Question: I want to talk about memory. You speak sometimes about the
imprints, the footprints that are left in the mind by the things that we store
there. These footprints, you say, are what cause us to react and behave the
way we do. Is there nothing we can do about what we do or don’t store in our
memory? Let me give an example. I walk down the street and I see a man
selling tea by the side of the road. I notice him, and that impression is stored
in my brain. It is there if I need to access that particular memory again. If I
maintain full awareness of myself, does that mean that such events will not
be recorded in my memory, that they will not leave a footprint there?

Papaji: Some things will go into the memory and some will not. Whatever
makes it into your memory will leave an impression. This is the footprint I
was talking about. All these footprints will collectively determine your future
actions and reactions. Your body will come into existence as a result of all
the footprints you have accumulated in past lives. These footprints will give
you a script, a destiny to fulfil. Your body has to take birth to experience
certain events that are determined by this massive collection of footprints you
have accumulated. That momentum is there and it cannot be stopped. You
yourself are responsible for all your actions and thoughts, and it is these
actions and thoughts that will determine your future actions and thoughts.
And while you are experiencing the events that are the direct result of all the
past footprints you have accumulated, you are making and storing up new
footprints that will add themselves to your collection. These in turn will have
to be experienced in the future, in a new body. And so it goes on, endlessly.
It is said that there are three kinds of karma. The first is the whole store of
karma that you have accumulated in all the previous incarnations. Some of
this huge store causes a form to manifest, a form that will experience some of
those past footprints in a particular incarnation. The destiny of that one
particular life is the second kind of karma. It is only a tiny fraction of the total
amount, so as you go through life, you are only working your way through a
very small amount of this pending karma. And while you are working off this
small portion of your karma, you are accumulating more footprints, more
impressions that will go into the warehouse of your unexperienced karma,
impressions that will cause yet more births in the future. These new footprints
are the third kind of karma. They are the new items that you are adding to
your already existing warehouse of footprints.
Now, your original question was, ‘Can I cancel out the impression of a
man who sells tea by the side of the road by maintaining full awareness?’
When you get this full awareness, this knowledge, this enlightenment, a
fire is lit. This awareness becomes a fire and this fire burns up the whole
store of footprints that you are keeping in your memory. All the millions of
samskaras which are stored in the warehouse, just waiting to manifest and
cause us more trouble, are burned up and destroyed. Without this full
awareness, this true knowledge, each of these samskaras has to fructify, but
the moment that the full awareness comes, they are all burnt to ashes. That
great bonfire includes the whole of your future, the whole of your past.
The liberated person will move through life without accumulating any
new footprints. The bonfire has destroyed his old stock, and his
enlightenment will prevent any new ones from sticking to him. For him, past
and future have both ceased. The actions of such a being are no longer
motivated by ideas of future rewards. He will not perform actions, thinking,
‘If I do this, this will happen’. Actions will still take place, but there will be
no sense that there is a person who is performing these actions. There will be
no particular interest in what is being done, and no attachment to it.
The karma that brought you to your final birth, that gave you a body with
a particular script, will keep the body engaged in all the activities that it is
destined to perform, but there will be no identification with the body, no
planning, no scheming, no idea that there are things that should be done or
not done. You will live through it all like a dream character in a dream. You
will understand how the whole process came into existence – how these
footprints caused you endless births and endless suffering – you will know
that they have ended for good, and you will also know that they can never
start again.
You will also understand and know directly that there never was a creator
of this world. No creator of it, and no creation either. This is the absolute
truth. If you want to come to that place where footprints no longer stick to
you, you have to arrive in this place where you know directly that there is no
creator and no creation. There you will know that no one has ever been
bound, no one has ever been liberated, and no one has ever even been an
aspirant for truth. I will repeat this again because this is the ultimate and final
truth: there is no bondage, no liberation, and no one even aspiring for
liberation.

Question: It sounds very simple: just living in the present moment. In this
present moment can I actually erase all the footprints, all the memories of the
past that I have created?

Papaji: I will tell you a story. There was once a man who wanted freedom.
He wanted to be initiated into some path that would lead him to truth, so he
asked around and was told, ‘You have to go to this Guru. He will help you.’
He went to the Guru, but this Guru said, ‘You have to go to this particular
god’.
He went to that god but was told, ‘You have to go to an even higher god’.
Like this, he was passed through several deities until he finally ended up
with the highest god.
He told this deity, ‘I have been sent from Guru to god, from god to god,
and now I have ended up with you. Everyone is sending me somewhere else.
You are my last hope. Please initiate me into freedom.’
This highest god said, ‘Go and have a bath in the Ganga, first thing in the
morning. The first person you see when you get out of the river will be your
Guru.’
The man took his bath and when he emerged from the river, the first
person he saw was a bird catcher who was spreading a net in an attempt to
snare a parrot.
He walked towards the man, thinking, ‘This is my Guru’, but as he
approached the hunter said, ‘Wait! Don’t come any closer! The bird is about
to enter the net!’
This man didn’t listen to the instruction. As he walked up to the hunter,
the bird he was trying to trap flew away.
The bird catcher was very angry. ‘I told you not to come any closer. What
are you doing here? Why have you come?’
‘I am looking for a Guru who can help me attain liberation,’ he said. ‘I
went to the highest god and he told me that the first person I would see after
getting out of the river would be my Guru. You are that person. I want you to
be my Guru. I want you to initiate me by giving me a mantra.’
The bird catcher, still angry, shouted back, ‘What’s a Guru? What’s
initiation? What’s a mantra? What’s liberation? I don’t know anything about
these things. I am just a bird catcher, and you are ruining my business! That’s
all I know! Go away and leave me alone!’
The man thought, ‘There must be some mistake here. I have come to the
wrong man. I had better go back to that last god and get better instructions.’
He went back to the god who immediately asked him, ‘Did you find the
Guru I sent you to?’
‘I found a man who was catching birds, who knew nothing about
enlightenment. He wasn’t a Guru at all. He was just a hunter who chased me
away because I was interfering with his activities.’
‘Stop! Stop!’ exclaimed the god. ‘You can’t criticise Gurus like this. I
will have to curse you for this. For speaking ill of the Guru I sent you to, you
will now have to undergo an extra cycle of birth and death. Then, and only
then, will you get liberation. There are 8.4 million species and you will have
to have a birth in each of these species before you have a human birth and
attain liberation.’
The man was now very desperate and very unhappy.
He thought, ‘I started off wanting liberation, wanting freedom from all
future births. I was given the run-around by all these gods, and now I have
been cursed to have another full cycle of birth and death. That bird catcher
may have been a real Guru. The gods can’t help me any more. All they do is
curse me. I have to go back to the bird catcher and ask him to help me.’
He went back to the river bank and found the same man there, still trying
to catch birds.
 ‘I came to you this morning, but you shouted at me and sent me away.
You told me you were not a Guru, that you knew nothing about liberation,
and I believed you. I went back to the god who sent me and told him that you
were just an ignorant hunter. For that criticism he has sentenced me to have
another 8.4 million births, each one in a different body.’
The bird catcher listened, but still showed no signs of having any spiritual
knowledge.
‘What are these 8.4 million species? I have never heard of ideas like this
before.’
They were on the bank of the river, so the man tried to give the bird
catcher some idea of what 8.4 million might mean by showing him all the
grains of sand that were on the shore. Then he showed him the insects that
were crawling around.
‘That’s a beetle; that’s an ant. Each of those different creatures is a
species. I have to live in 8.4 million of them again before I can attain
enlightenment. The highest of the gods has cursed me, so this curse has to
take effect. However, I now recognise that you are my Guru, and that means
that you alone can save me from this horrible fate. I prostrate to you and ask
you to free me from this curse.’
The bird catcher laughed and said, ‘Freedom is very easy. Let these gods
do whatever they want to do. This supreme god, this godhead, is the creator
of all this manifestation. He is responsible for all of it. If you want to live in
his world, you have to subject yourself to his rules, his incarnations and his
curses. But you can get out of this manifestation and live in a place where he
can’t touch you. I can pass you through all this manifestation in an instant.
Just write down what the god has condemned you to.’
The man wrote the curse in the sand and the bird catcher ran his hand
along it and wiped it all out.
‘Now you are finished,’ he said. ‘You are liberated. Now you can be truly
happy.’
What did he do, and how did he do it? He made the man write down ‘8.4
million births’ in the sand and then wiped it out. The 8.4 million births was
just an idea he had in his mind, nothing more. By wiping it out with a
physical gesture, he convinced the man that the rebirths were just a concept
that had no ultimate validity. The man also had the idea that there was a
supreme god who had cursed him to experience 8.4 million births, but the
Guru wiped out that god-idea as well. The millions of births and the gods
who condemn you to them are just ideas in your mind. They are very strongly
held beliefs and they exercise such a hold over you, you will have to
experience them repeatedly until you finally stop believing them. This bird
catcher simply wiped out the idea in the man’s mind that he had to undergo
all these births, and when that idea went, his cycle of births and deaths came
to an end.
This can happen. Don’t think that it is just a story. The idea that there are
all these different species and that you have to work your way through all of
them is just an idea that can be erased. The footprints can be erased, and the
one who thinks he is the performer of actions can be erased as well.
‘I am the doer’ is the idea that keeps you busy and preoccupied. You are
always doing things, thinking ‘I am doing this’, or thinking about what you
are going to do next. You might think that you are helping others with all
your various activities, but so long as you indulge in this persistent idea of
doership, you are not helping yourself, or anyone else. If you want freedom,
you will need to devote a small portion of your time and your attention to
your own Self, and to do that properly, you will have to give up this ‘I am the
doer’ idea. You work for others, you keep others in your heart, you think
about others, you live your life through relationships with other people. Why
not instead devote just a little of your time and attention to your own Self? In
a whole life span no one spends even five minutes with full, undistracted
attention on that Self. Spend just five minutes on your own Self, with no
other thoughts trespassing on your attention.
You meditate and a thought comes that distracts you. What is this
thought? It is a piece of your past, an attachment that you have stored up in
your memory. If the attachment was not there, the thought would not pop up
and grab your attention.

Question: [new questioner] You told us a story not long ago about how you
reacted when you saw Buddha in a book. Is that attachment? Is that the sort
of thing you are talking about?
Papaji: When you have attachment, when you associate with some thought
or image, when your attention goes out to a particular idea or form, you
acquire something of the object you are associating with. The ‘sang’ in
satsang means ‘association’. You can associate with truth, sat, and let that
association rub off on you, or you can associate with garbage and let it run
and ruin your life. When you associate with your own Self, when you talk
only of that Self and think only of that Self, you are in satsang. All the rest is
‘asang’, bad association. Don’t associate with people or ideas that are asang.
Keep your thoughts on the Self, wherever you are. This is the number one
satsang. In all the worlds of gods and people there is nothing that can match
or equal this satsang.
Your senses don’t want you to be in satsang. They will always be trying
to divert your attention somewhere else. Don’t feed them by giving them
your attention. Your interest in them sustains their activities. Withdraw your
interest and they can have no hold on you. Stay focused within.
If you need more help, and if your luck has not failed you, you might find
someone you can be in satsang with, someone who embodies that sat, that
truth. You may or you may not. There is no guarantee in this. If you think
you have found such a being, be very careful. Don’t trust the impression your
senses give you, for these impressions are not reliable. If you think you have
found a good teacher, a good place to have that satsang, then you are entitled
to test that teacher until you are satisfied that he is the genuine article. In the
same way that you test the purity of gold before you commit to buying it, test
a potential teacher very carefully. Then, if you are satisfied with your choice,
stay there and have satsang with that person. If you can’t find such a being,
then it is better for you to stay alone. Freedom can wait for another life, but
entrusting an unqualified and foolish teacher with your spiritual wellbeing
can destroy your prospects for much, much longer. You will die without
attaining that freedom, and afterwards you will wander off into births where
satsang will not be available for you. If you cannot find a genuine teacher to
commit yourself to, it is much better to stay alone. Sat means ‘truth’, and
‘truth’ means the Self. You will never get led astray by putting your attention
on the Self. It’s always best to depend on your own Self. That way you will
never get lost.
Question: [new questioner] If I give up all attachments, all the imprints in
my memory, that means I have to lose the love I have for my friends and my
family. They will still be there, in front of me, but I somehow won’t care for
them any more. You are speaking of a state in which one cannot entertain
thoughts of the past friendship any more, a state in which nothing that
interested or moved me before will ever interest or move me again.

Papaji: We come to this life with a prarabdha, a destiny that we have to

fulfil. There are certain people we have to live and interact with. These
interactions are inescapable. However, the relationships that we are destined
for can be conducted without having them affect us. If they affect us, touch
us, or move us in some way, we create new karma for ourselves, karma that
will bring us back to this world again and again.
Everyone comes to this world with a script of activities that is determined
by past-life events, past-life relationships, past-life desires and aversions.
Some arrive in this birth with a very strong desire for freedom as well. When
this freedom is attained, the body will continue, and it will continue to
experience the consequences of all past-life attachments and desires. The Self
of the liberated being will experience no karma at all, but the body will still
have to complete its span on this earth with a script that is determined by all
its earlier associations and attachments. Ramana Maharshi had cancer;
Ramakrishna had cancer; Yogananda had cancer. The body will continue to
experience the fruits of past actions and reactions, but the realised being will
not be bothered by any of this. He will know that he is not the body that is
sick and in pain, or the person who is animating the body. He can watch the
body complete its prarabdha in a detached way.
Those who win freedom in this life will not be reborn again. This means
that all the pending physical karma has to be crammed into one last
incarnation. That’s why enlightened beings sometimes end up with very
diseased bodies. All the outstanding karmas will jump onto their bodies from
all directions.

Question: [new questioner] Going back to the earlier question, would you
say that the footprints that caused you to have an attachment to the Buddha
were beneficial in your case?
Papaji: I cannot say. I really cannot say. This was just something that sprang
up inside me. I don’t know where it came from. No one had ever spoken to
me about the Buddha. I just read about him in a history book. Many other
things were there in that book, but they didn’t interest me at the time. There
were lives in that book that other people might have thought were just as
beautiful. I merely saw the Buddha sitting there in that picture and fell in love
with him.

Question: You must have seen many terrible things in your life.

Papaji: Yes.

Question: You still remember them. If you can still see them, why don’t they
carry you into the past, to places where attachments form?

Papaji: The enlightened man is not like a rock. Memory is still there, but he
has no attachments to events that are stored there. When a memory surfaces,
he doesn’t run after it. It doesn’t produce a desire in him, or an aversion.
Memory doesn’t carry him to new places, to places that make new karma.
Memories, and attachments to them, pull you into new births where you have
to experience these attachments.
There was once a king in ancient India who had ruled his kingdom for
many years. One day he approached his wife and said, ‘My hair is going
grey. I have other priorities to attend to. I am going to leave you, leave the
kingdom, leave the government of this country and go to the forest where I
want to meditate and get enlightened. I want to search for the Self. You have
ministers here who can help you to run the kingdom. Please don’t follow me.’
He went to the forest, built himself a simple hut and started to meditate
there. While he was living there a hunter shot a pregnant deer. The deer died,
but the baby deer came out and was still alive. The king, now a sannyasin,
came across this crying baby deer and took pity on it. He took it home and
looked after it by feeding it milk in his hut. The former king completely fell
in love with his new pet. He had left his queen but instead of meditating on
the Self, he fell in love with a deer. This is a story of footprints – how they
form, and how they make future karma for you. This man had two strong
passions: his desire to do tapas to attain enlightenment, and his strong love
for his pet deer.
As he lay dying his final thought was about his pet deer: ‘If I die, some
tiger will come and eat the deer.’
This is compassion, but it is also attachment. In his next life he was born
as a deer, but because he had done a lot of meditation in his last life, he had
earned enough merit to be born as a deer in the ashram of a rishi who was
called Bharat. He spent his life in that ashram, living the life of a sadhu there.
He didn’t mix with the other animals. Instead, he sat with the other sadhus
and listened as they chanted portions of the scriptures.
This is how rebirths happen. This king had a desire to meditate and a
strong attachment to a deer. In his next life he became a deer who had the
company of sadhus who were meditating in the forest.

[A few seconds of silence followed]

Somebody asked me a question recently: ‘How do I avoid falling from

freedom?’ I can give a different answer now: ‘If you don’t make any new
footprints, you cannot fall.’ Keep your whole focus on that Self. This is the
work you have to do. After some time it becomes automatic.
I read a letter from a French girl recently. She also spoke about this. She
said, ‘There’s nothing else to do now except this work’.

Master, my own Self, I feel very deeply that at present for Nicole
there is only one thing to do in order to accomplish whatever
arises in a day. Not to forget to see myself as the one and only
being-principle in all that I touch, I see, I feel, and especially to
live life myself as the unique principle itself, seeing itself in what
I still call others; and if forgetfulness arises, not to forget that
forgetfulness is also the being-principle because other than that
nothing exists. The being-principle, emptiness, silence, now are
the same. There is no difference between them. With my
profound respect and my sincere love, Nicole.

Question: [new questioner] Does the desire for freedom leave footprints?
And are these footprints good ones? Will they take us to circumstances where
we can do something about our desire for freedom?
Papaji: The one who has made a decision to win freedom has no feet to leave
footprints. Who is the one who has decided to win freedom? This is
something that has to be decided. Who is going to win this freedom?

Question: It’s our choice.

Papaji: Yes, maybe this is your thought, but this thought will not leave any
footprint. Somehow, this thought of freedom just jumped out of the memory.
By sheer luck it jumped up and grabbed your attention, but it will leave no
footprint behind. It rises and waits for the answering call from the other side,
from freedom itself. Let this thought rise. It is not really a thought; it is
freedom itself calling you home. You can call it a thought, though, if you
want to. Let this thought rise because it is a blessed thought. Let it rise and
then wait for the echo from the other side. Listen to the echo of this thought
because that echo is freedom itself.
 33

When you have lost the concept of duality, of two,

oneness also goes

[Most of the satsangs that have been reproduced in this book have been taken
from a series of audio tapes that were recorded in 1991. One tape is missing
from this sequence. Papaji’s initial remarks in the dialogue that follows
appear to be a continuation of a conversation that began on the missing tape.
From the way that the tape begins, it seems that Papaji has been trying,
unsuccessfully, to make a visitor describe an experience he had had in
Papaji’s presence.]

Papaji: I don’t agree with any of the descriptions of reality that I have heard.
Many words have been used to describe it, but I can’t accept any of them as
being accurate. People say ‘emptiness’ or ‘the void’ or ‘fullness’ or any
number of other terms. I have been trying for a long time to find some word,
some expression, that describes it, but I have failed. When I see someone
who has just woken up to that state, I usually ask them to describe it, to tell
me what it is like. I always hope that someone will say something that
satisfies me, but nothing I am told ever does.
You have not spoken to me before, except for a few words now and then.
This has happened to other people as well. Some people come, directly
experience what I am talking about, or pointing to, even though I have never
had any one-to-one conversation with them. They just heard one or two
words and that was enough. Afterwards, I tried with these people as well.
Sometimes I have spent days with them, mostly just sitting quietly. We just
enjoy each other’s presence. The love, the beauty, the understanding, the
enjoyment is there, but it is not something that either of us can speak about. I
am asking you to speak because I can see that you are seeing,

Question: There’s nothing I can do.

Papaji: I know. That’s why I am asking you this question. I am asking you
this question but I am not expecting an answer. It doesn’t matter. I am very
happy with you, very happy. But it doesn’t matter.

[Papaji laughs, after which there is a long pause.]

Clear all your doubts. Clear everything.

Question: [new questioner] I find it interesting that I have no doubts now.

Doubt used to be my major stumbling block.

Papaji: It’s very good to have doubts, to wonder what is going on.

Question: Yet I have had no doubts for the last five days.

Papaji: I repeat: it is good to have doubts.

Question: Yes, I understand what you are saying. That it’s good to have
doubts so that you can remove them.

Papaji: Doubt must be there initially. There must be this doubt that stands
between you and freedom. Some people have no doubts at all. These people
are in complete darkness. In sheer ignorance there is no doubt at all, but there
is no benefit in being in that state. If you are completely content to remain in
your ignorance, doubts will never arise. Doubts will only come when you
have glimpsed the possibility of getting out of it.

Question: That’s why I asked the question. I thought I was having too easy a
ride. I was not worrying about anything, and for a while it was fun, but now I
am beginning to wonder whether I am stuck in this state. Whether I need to
have more questions, more doubts, in order to move on to something else.

Papaji: Always have doubts, and then get your doubts cleared. Doubts are
hurdles that have to be cleared. Doubts are impediments. They place
themselves between you and freedom. In the completely ignorant mind there
is no doubt. Such a person is quite content with the level of ignorance that is
being experienced. The first step to freedom is to have some doubts, to
question whether your ignorance is something that you really want to live
with. When this doubt arises, approach someone who can help you to remove
the doubt.

Question: I had so many doubts in the past. You know that because I brought
many of them here. But what I am saying is that for the last five days none of
these standard doubts has arisen in my mind. A lot of my doubts centred on
things I had read in the scriptures, things that didn’t really make sense to me.
Now, after hearing you for a few days I feel that I am leaving behind the
scriptures. I feel I have somehow let go of them. Abandoning the scriptures
and my associated ideas of what the dharma is, and should be, is somehow a
great relief. These ideas don’t bother me any more.

Papaji: Excellent!

Question: There were no more doubts about these ideas. They just didn’t
appear any more.

Papaji: This is very clear. Just go on sailing.

Question: Now I am fine, but when I go home I don’t know whether I will be
just as content to have no thoughts about these matters. [Laughs]

Papaji: This mention of ‘dharma’ reminds me. Where is that little text that
someone sent me? There is something in there about doubts.

[Someone found the text, a translation of Seng-Tsan’s Verses on the Faith

Mind, translated by Richard Clarke, and gave it to Papaji. Seng-Tsan was
the third Zen Patriarch of China. Papaji read out the text in full, pausing
occasionally to make comments on what he was reading. He also repeated
some of the lines. The portions of the text that he read out twice are
underlined:]

The great way is not difficult

for those who are unattached to preferences.
When love and hate are both absent,
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
 Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth,
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood,
the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
The way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things
nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things
and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.
When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity,
your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other,
you will never know oneness.
Those who do not live in the single way
fail in both activity and passivity, assertion and denial.
To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality.
To assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality.
The more you talk and think about it,
the further astray you wander from truth.
Stop talking and thinking
and there is nothing you will not be able to know.
To return to the root is to find the meaning,
but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.
At the moment of inner enlightenment
there is a going beyond appearance...

[Papaji, chuckling, exclaimed, ‘Yes! Wonderful!’ before continuing with

an emphatic repetition:]
 At the moment of inner enlightenment
there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness.
The changes that appear to occur in the empty world
we call real only because of our ignorance.
Do not search for the truth.
Only cease to cherish opinions.
Do not remain in the dualistic state.
Avoid such pursuits carefully.
If there is even a trace of this and that, of right and wrong,
the mind-essence will be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities come from the one,
do not be attached even to this one.

Papaji: [turning to the last questioner] You have to understand this line.

Question: That is quite difficult for me to understand.

Papaji: Yes, that’s why I stopped there. It says, ‘Do not be attached even to
this one’. I will explain this because he is not being completely clear here.
When you have detached yourself from duality, that means that at one time
you accepted duality as being valid. The accepting and the not accepting are
both conclusions. When you have rejected duality, what remains is the one.
That’s true, isn’t it? All dualities, all ideas of duality, come from the oneness,
and when duality is discarded, what remains is the oneness. Then he says,
‘Do not be attached even to this one’. Up to here you have obviously
understood, but now I have to explain what this line means. He is telling you
not to be attached to the ‘one’ as a concept. ‘One’ and ‘two’ are two concepts
that are related to each other. Is it possible to speak of two unless you have
the concept of one? You can’t, can you?

Question: No, I can honestly say that I can’t.

Papaji: Two is one plus one. When you see it like this, the oneness has
entered the duality, at least in your concept of what is going on. Two always
has a relationship with one when one is still a concept. But when duality is
lost, where is the one? Where is it?
Question: In the two? Back in the two? I don’t really know.

Papaji: When you have lost the concept of duality, of two, oneness also
goes.

Question: Right.

Papaji: When you are one, when you are alone in the oneness, you don’t
count yourself as ‘one’ because there is no two for you to be in a relationship
with. One can only exist as one if there is a two for it to be in a relationship
with. When two doesn’t exist at all, one cannot exist either.
What happens when we sleep? We reject everyone. Many people came to
see you while you were awake. Perhaps you were at a wedding, your own
wedding, where you were socialising with many friends and relatives. One by
one everyone leaves and says ‘goodbye’. Now you are left with your bride.
There are just the two of you left and it is time for you to go to sleep. You are
both there, in the same bed, in the same room. The two goes when you say
goodnight to your new wife, and the moment you enter deep sleep, the one
goes as well. You enter a place where neither one nor two can exist. When
the one goes, when it disappears, everything else goes with it. Ideas of one
and two cannot rise or exist there.
You can’t even think of one unless you speak and think of something that
is other than that one. When you return to the Self, duality goes, and the one
goes along with it. The Self is not something that can be counted in units of
one or two. Neither one nor two is there. This is what this Zen master is
trying to tell you. You have to reject the idea of one as well as two.

Although all dualities come from the one,

do not be attached even to this one.

I told you earlier that you had to go on rejecting everything that could be
rejected. This one is one of the things you have to reject. Reject everything as
‘not me’: ‘I am not the many; I am not my parents, I am not my brothers; I
am not my son.’ Then you are reduced to the possibility of your being the
one. Reject that as well. When you say to yourself, ‘I am not the mind, not
the body, not the ego, not the intellect,’ and so on, add ‘I am not the one’.
Reject that as well and then rest in the quietness of what remains and see
what reveals itself to you.

When the mind exists undisturbed in the way,

nothing in the world can offend,
and when a thing can no longer offend,
it ceases to exist in the old way.

‘It ceases to exist in the old way.’ The mountain will be a different
mountain. The tree will be a different tree. The man will be a different man.
Things will be the same, but the way you view them will be different.

When no discriminating thoughts arise,

the old mind ceases to exist.
When thought objects vanish,
the thinking subject vanishes,
as when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.

‘When thought objects vanish.’ This is where you start your enquiry, with
objects of thought. When you say, ‘I am the body’, the body is your thought
object. Start from that place. ‘I am Tim’. When this thought vanishes, the ‘I’
who thought he was Tim also vanishes. When the mind that has objects of
thought vanishes, the objects themselves vanish. Consider what happens
when you go to sleep. Mind vanishes, and all the objects it was previously
perceiving vanish.

Things are objects because of the subject [mind].

The mind [subject] is such because of things [objects].

Things are only objects because of the subject that perceives them. Mind
is what it is because of the things that it perceives. The mind is the subject
because of the objects it sees. They both appear and disappear together.
Neither can exist without the other.

Understand the relativity of these two

and the basic reality, the unity of emptiness.
In this emptiness the two are indistinguishable,
 and each contains in itself the whole world.
If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine,
you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.
To live in the great way is neither easy nor difficult,
but those with limited views are fearful and irresolute.
The faster they hurry, the slower they go,
and clinging [attachment] cannot be limited.
Even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray.

Ah ha! Very nice! ‘Even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to

go astray.’ [Laughs for some time] We were speaking earlier of meditation
and ideas and decisions. This is the dharma! This is the dharma!

Just let things be in their own way

and there will be neither coming nor going.
Obey the nature of things, your own nature,
and you will walk freely and undisturbed.
When thought is in bondage, the truth is hidden,
for everything is murky and unclear,
and the burdensome practice of judging
brings annoyance and weariness.
What benefit can be derived from distinctions and separations?
If you wish to move in the one way,
do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.
Indeed, to accept them fully
is identical with true enlightenment.
The wise man strives to no goals,
but the foolish man fetters himself.
There’s one dharma, not many.
Distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
To seek mind with the mind is the greatest of all mistakes.
Rest and unrest derive from illusion.
With enlightenment there is no liking and disliking.
All dualities come from ignorant inference.
They are like dreams or flowers in air:
foolish to try to grasp them.
 Gain and loss, right and wrong,
such thoughts must finally be abolished at once.
If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations,
the ten thousand things are as they are, of single essence.
To understand the mystery of this one-essence
is to be released from all entanglements.
When all things are seen equally,
the timeless self-essence is reached.
No comparisons or analogies are possible
in this causeless, relationless state.

[Papaji laughed before repeating the last statement:] No comparisons or

analogies are possible in this causeless, relationless state.

Consider movement stationary and the stationary in motion.

Both movement and rest disappear.
When such dualities cease to exist...

Oho! This is the thing I was just talking about. I was trying to explain it to
you, but he explains it himself in the next line.

When such dualities cease to exist,

oneness itself cannot exist.

He did it! He explained this himself. I thought he was not going to say
this, so I explained it myself earlier. This is very good, very nice. I am
reading this for the first time. If I had known he was going to say this
himself, I wouldn’t have stopped earlier.

Question: Really! You have never come across these words before? They are
quite famous.

Papaji: Yes, I’m reading them for the first time, thinking about them without
any support from anything or anywhere else. It’s very nice. No, better than
that: it’s excellent!
 To this ultimate finality no law or description applies.

No laws operate in that place, no revelation is valid. Nothing applies

there. What is this situation? This is what you have to know and experience.

For the unified mind in accord with the way

all self-centred striving ceases.
Doubts and irresolutions vanish,
and life in true faith is possible.
With a single stroke we are freed from bondage.
Nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.
All is empty, clear, self-illuminating,
with no exertion of the mind’s power.
Here thought, feeling, knowledge and imagination are of no value.
In this world of suchness
there is neither self nor other-than-self.
To come directly into harmony with this reality
just simply say when doubts arise, ‘Not two’.
In this ‘not two’ nothing is separate,
nothing is excluded.
No matter when or where,
enlightenment means entering this truth,
and this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space.
In it a single thought is ten thousand years.

[Laughing again] This is what we talk about here. This is the space we
speak of here. ‘A single thought is ten thousand years.’

Emptiness here, emptiness there,

but the infinite universe stands
always before your eyes,
infinitely large and infinitely small:
no difference, for definitions have vanished
and no boundaries are seen.
So too with being and non-being.
Don’t waste time in doubts and arguments
 that have nothing to do with enlightenment.

[The Richard Clarke translation that Papaji was reading from actually
says ‘nothing to do with this’ but Papaji somehow read it as ‘enlightenment’
and then repeated the two lines again, with the same final word.]

One thing, all things:

move among and intermingle
without distinction.
To live in this realisation
is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.
To live in this faith is the road to non-duality
because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.
Words!
The way is beyond language,
for in it there is
no yesterday,
no tomorrow,
no today.

Papaji: Did you like this?

Question: Yes, it was very beautiful.

Papaji: Yes, very beautiful. What a teaching! You won’t hear a better
teaching than this. As you listen to this, you can’t cling to anything. That’s
the beauty of it. You can’t cling to any sentence, any word, any teaching to
give you freedom.
 34

This place where the ‘I’ vanishes is wisdom

Question: Today I am besieged by doubt. Huge, vast doubts. Everywhere I

look I see doubts.

Papaji: Doubts are related to what you are doing, or what you think you
should be doing. You imagine you are climbing some great and dangerous
mountain. In this imagination you see sharp, steep rocks, glaciers and ice, and
so on. You imagine these things and then you imagine skidding, falling and
dying. But I am telling you that you have climbed the mountain. You have
done all the hard work. You are standing on a plateau that is only a few easy
steps away from the summit. You are face to face with that presence which
you have climbed the mountain to meet. There is nothing more that you need
to do. Nothing more is needed now.

Question: How can I overcome this doubt without making some effort?

Papaji: All the effort you are making is taking place in your imagination.
You imagined that you had to scale a summit, so you put in lots of imaginary
effort to get there. You were so fixated by the imaginary scenario, you didn’t
realise that you were already on the plateau at the top of the mountain. There
was nowhere else for you to climb, but in your imagination you thought you
were on a steep slope, and that you were in danger of falling off it. Say to
yourself, ‘I am face to face with the presence’. Leave your efforts alone.
Leave everything. The efforts are an obstacle.

Question: I can’t see myself being in this place you tell me about. From
where I am right now, all I see is the imagination.

Papaji: You have to become the seer. Not the individual person who sees
imaginary objects and struggles, but that seer through which everything else
is seen. You are that seer already. You don’t need to make any effort to reach
that place, that perspective, because that is where you are right now. You are
just imagining that this is not true.

Question: Yesterday you spoke about your own experiences. You said that
the experience, the realisation, came first, and the understanding of it came
later.

Papaji: Yes, the experience came first, but I had no context to put it in, no
way of explaining to myself what had happened. I could say that
understanding came later, but even that is not strictly true. The experience is
still there, but I have never really understood it.

Question: My experience seems to be the reverse. There seems to have been

some sort of understanding, and then that was followed by an experience

Papaji: ‘Reverse’ also means ‘to go backwards’. You left yourself to get an
understanding, and then you reversed; went back along the route you had
travelled to get the experience. Leaving the Self to get an understanding and
returning to it to claim the experience never happened at all, except in your
imagination. You didn’t go anywhere. You just made a dream journey. You
can dream you go to New York, and in that dream you can travel back to
wherever your bed is, but when you wake up you immediately know that you
never really took a journey. You slept in your room the whole time, without
moving anywhere at all.
While you are dreaming about effort and sadhana, while you are
pretending to do all these things, the Self is not doing anything at all. Self is
Self, and it never moves anywhere or does anything. It never makes any
effort, and it never goes out and comes back to itself. All these things go on
in your imagination. The non-Self can never become the Self. The non-Self is
the person who runs around looking for the Self, and imagines that he is
having a tough time trying to reach his goal. Not through any amount of
effort will the non-Self ever become the Self. The Self requires no effort to
remain as it is. It just is.

Question: Yes, I can see that. I find that it requires an effort on my part to
remain vigilant, to watch the rising thoughts. If I don’t maintain that effort,
that vigilance, I become seduced by the contents of the mind and forget the
presence.

Papaji: Presence is what you are. Presence is the Self. Self is what you are,
and you do not need to be vigilant to be what you are. You are already that. If
you feel that you are not the Self, if you feel this, then you have to be vigilant
when thoughts arise because those thoughts will take you away from the Self.
They take you into the imaginary world of the non-Self. There, you have to
start thinking about how to return home. If you choose this route, you will
need to maintain some sort of vigilance to see how this thought of the non-
Self arises. It rises from somewhere. If you can find that somewhere, the
thought of non-Self will go back there and disappear.

Question: That was what I was getting confused about yesterday. I

understood that I had become more and more seduced by the contents of the
mind. I didn’t want to use effort to solve this problem, yet at the same time I
find that some effort is required in order to maintain vigilance. I want to be
aware of the rising thoughts that take me away from the present so that I can
stop associating with them and remain in the present. But the more I
purposely chose to not use effort, the more I was seduced by the contents of
the mind.

Papaji: For the concept of effort to arise in the mind, there must be a thought
about it. Isn’t that true? There is a thought that arises, that says to you, ‘I need
to make an effort’. Only after this thought has arisen will you decide to make
some effort or ignore this thought. But even that is not the first thought, the
primary thought. For the thought ‘I need to make an effort’ to arise, there
must be an ‘I’ that has that thought. That ‘I’ is itself a thought. So, the first
thought that arises is this ‘I’, which later decides whether you are going to
make some effort or not.
This ‘I’-thought is there. Let us see where it comes from. This situation
has come up several times in the last few days. We have all been sitting here;
someone has raised a question like this, and I have recommended as an
answer that the questioner finds out and returns to that place where the ‘I’
first emerges. This is not something new that I am prescribing today. I have
asked you all to work on this problem: to find out where that ‘I’ comes from,
to follow it back to its originating point. I tell you all to do this because if you
can find that point, that place in yourself where the ‘I’-thought emerges, that
‘I’-thought will disappear.
When that primary ‘I’-thought goes back to its source and disappears,
everything disappears along with it. In that moment you are the ‘present’ that
you were talking about. You are then the Self. When you stay in that place
and know it for yourself, that is the Self. That is freedom. From there, where
do you have to go? What do you have to achieve? This place where the ‘I’
vanishes is wisdom. It is indescribable. No one has ever truly described what
it is. In that place you won’t need any effort. What possible effort can you
make there?
This is the place where effort has not arisen even as a thought to be
considered. Why should you let all these thoughts arise, thoughts that will
compel you to choices and actions, thoughts that will keep you away from the
Self?
What happens when you choose to leave that place? The ‘I’-thought
arises; the senses start collecting information and feeding it to the ‘I’-thought.
Then you start making choices about the perceptions and ideas that the ‘I’ is
associating with. This whole process just propels you into trouble. Why do
you need to let all this happen? Abide in that place where there is no thought
of effort or non-effort, the place where even the thought ‘I’ has not risen. It’s
all quiet there. It is so quiet, words are an obstruction. When we speak, words
arise and obstruct that silent flow of Self. The spontaneous flow of wisdom is
obstructed by these words.

Question: Mind seems to have a momentum of its own. We can all agree
with what you say, but that doesn’t stop our minds from being persistently
busy.

Papaji: Mind is the past. If you are present, you will not see the mind at all.
In ‘present’ you can’t see the mind at all. This ‘present’ has no valid
description. It is just there if you don’t look at the past.

Question: Mind wants to deal with things on its own terms. It likes to have a
problem that it can figure out through thoughts and actions.
Papaji: This is the kind of talk that takes place before the honeymoon
happens. Forget all these thoughts. Leave them all behind. When you enter
the honeymoon chamber, everyone else has left. You go in there alone. Leave
the world of words behind you and go in to meet your bride. Talk is over
now. Face your bride. No one else is there.
 35

Give up the mind’s conviction that this is

something that you ‘do’

Question: I have a copy of that lovely poem by the third Zen Patriarch of
China. Jim gave it to me. But there is one paragraph that I don’t understand.

Papaji: This is the same one I read recently?

Question: Yes, the same one. This is the portion I don’t understand. [He
shows the lines to Papaji, who read them out.]

Papaji: Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do

not see the true nature of things.

This is the section you don’t understand? Just these lines?

Question: I really don’t understand what they mean.

Papaji: Let us say that you have a choice to accept something or reject it.
You will accept it if you like it and reject it if you hate it. These are the two
things that might happen.
Now, imagine that you are asleep, fast asleep in your bed. A beautiful,
desirable woman comes into the room and sits on your bed. You don’t see her
as desirable; you don’t desire her because you are fast asleep. She gets up and
leaves. While she was there, you didn’t accept her and you didn’t reject her.
She made no impression on you at all because your mind was not registering
her and making choices about whether she was desirable or not.
Next, a man walks in who wants to quarrel with you. He is angry with
you and he has come to have a fight. He sees you sleeping on the bed, waits
awhile for you to wake up, and then goes away, thinking, ‘I will come back
and tell him what I think of him when he wakes up’.
 You have neither accepted this man nor rejected him. The thoughts ‘I will
accept him’ or ‘I will reject him’ couldn’t arise in you because your mind was
not there. You were fast asleep.
If you can keep your mind out of the way when you wake up, you can
live the same way there as well. Someone comes and says, ‘Oh, you’re a very
fine man!’ Hear those words without having the mind jump up and be happy
about them. And if the same person says, ‘I hate you!’, have the same non-
reaction. I am not talking about a state in which you choose to ignore the
insult, but still feel hurt and offended. I am talking about the state where the
mind is not there to take delivery of the insult and react to it. If you can stay
in that place, that state, you will be smiling when the compliments come and
smiling when the insults come.
This is the state of waking sleep. It is like sleep in so far as the mind is
absent, but there is a wakefulness there because you can still see the world
and deal with it.
The moon is there in the sky. I can scream at it, or I can spit at it. I can
worship it by throwing flowers at it and singing its praises. How is the moon
affected by my actions? Not at all. It just carries on shining. We may behave
well, or we may behave badly. We may quarrel or we may meditate. How is
the moonlight affected by any of this? It is the same with emptiness. We are
sitting in emptiness. Within these four walls there is emptiness. We may be
meditating, or we may be doing something else. Whatever we are doing or
not doing, the emptiness is not affected in any way. Our presence or our
absence makes no difference to this emptiness, this space that exists within
these four walls.
You are that emptiness in which all things appear and disappear. You are
not any of them. Their activities and inactivities do not touch you. Their
presence or their absence makes no difference to what you are. Always you
are empty.

Question: When you put it that way, I completely understand.

Papaji: Nothing has ever entered there. Nothing can ever enter there. I am
talking about a place where not even the thought ‘I’ can exist. An ‘I’ is
needed to accept or reject. Until there is an existing ‘I’-thought, there can be
no acceptance and no rejection. This is the place where the ‘I’ cannot reside,
not even as a first thought.
This ‘I’ is the source of not only the mind, it is also the source of the
world and the creator of it. In that place, that state wherein the ‘I’ cannot
exist, there is no creation and no creator. The created beings who make
choices about accepting and rejecting are not there, and can never be there.
The creator and his creation arise after the emergence of the ‘I’. If the ‘I’ does
not manifest, neither does the creator.
It is said, ‘In the beginning was the word and the word was God’. That
word, that name, comes out of this emptiness I am talking about. The
emptiness of the Self exists prior to both. It is very silent there. Very silent.

Question: Can I ask a very practical question about this? A cobra suddenly
jumps out in front of me in a place where I cannot run away. I am stuck in a
corner with no possibility of flight. There’s a split second in which I have
options: I can kill it, ignore it, or let it kill me. Being philosophical about this
doesn’t solve the problem. I have a very real choice in that moment. What is
this verse saying about situations like this? Do I just have to stand quietly and
await developments? Am I not allowed to make a choice between living and
dying?

Papaji: In a situation like this you don’t make a choice that comes from
rational consideration. You don’t stand there thinking, ‘If I do nothing, it will
kill me’. Or, ‘I must attack it before it attacks me’. In such circumstances a
spontaneous action will come.

Question: Yes, I see what you mean.

Papaji: This intermediary thinking process that takes place between thought
and action is absolutely foolish. It belongs to samsara, to karma. People in
samsara think and then they act. And then they worry about what they have
done afterwards. If you live in the Self, you act and forget. No thought
prompts the action, and no thoughts analyse and judge the action after it has
been completed. This is the difference. Act and forget. Kiss and forget. Slap
and forget. This can only happen when you know your true nature.
To know the true nature of things, you must first know your own true
nature. Knowing one’s true nature is very simple. You just say to yourself, ‘I
am not the shirt’. Find out what is the real you, and what are merely the
transient things that you own and associate with.
What is my true nature? It is not something that I can discard, something
that comes and goes, something I cover myself up with. I can throw away the
shirt and buy another one, so I know the shirt is not me. Underneath the shirt
is my skin. If I experience a bad burn, I can have a skin graft and replace it.
So I am not the skin either. I can have a bad accident that results in my hand
being amputated. It may hurt for a while, but my true nature has not changed
during the experience. It has not lost a hand, the body has.
We say, ‘My house, my car, my wife, my body,’ and so on. They are all
possessions or relationships that come and go. They associate with you for a
while and then they leave you. They are not permanent and enduring. They
are not your true nature, that which never changes and which never comes
and goes. Your true nature cannot be traded in for a new one when you get
bored with it. It is not your possession; it is what you are.
Everything and everyone have to be abandoned at some point. All
possessions and all relationships will leave you. No matter how much love
you have for a person, how attached to that person you are, that person, that
relationship, will go one day because it is not who you are. Who you are
never goes, never leaves. A king of India built the Taj Mahal to enshrine his
love for his dead wife. She was the love of his life, but the relationship ended
and left him.
So what is your true nature? It is ‘I am’. Not ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’.
Not the ‘I’ that owns a house or has a relationship with a wife. Just ‘I am’,
with nothing attached to it, or identified with it.
We were talking about the ‘I’-thought earlier. This ‘I’-thought is the first
thought, the thought that causes the world and the creator of it to jump into
existence. This ‘I’-thought is not your real nature because it is always
attached to something. It is always claiming ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’. It is not
your real nature because it is not permanent. It rises, plays for a while, and
then vanishes. If you want to know what your true nature is, you will have to
go to that place where the ‘I’ rises. Go to the place where it takes birth. What
is the source of this great fountain, this energy that rushes up and displays
itself as the mind, the world and God? Go there and see for yourself. I cannot
describe it and I cannot take you there. But if you arrive at this place where
the ‘I’-thought disappears, you will find out what you really are, what your
true nature is. Always you are that. When you abide in that place without an
‘I’, what will you accept and what will you reject?
When you know that truth, you know that any other perspective is false.
We can argue about what is true and what is false, but when you get to this
place, you will know for yourself.

Question: My mind….

Papaji: ‘My mind’! You are back in relationships again.

Question: I call it my mind. What else can I do? I see this thing I call my
mind and watch it with disgust. It is like watching someone run into a living
room and defecate. I feel that this mind runs into the living room of
‘presence’ and defecates there, and I am embarrassed and disgusted because I
seem to have no control over it at all. I know what’s going on. I watch it, but
I can’t stop it.

Papaji: These are all old habits manifesting themselves. Old habits are the
past, a graveyard of dead thoughts and impressions. Everyone is living in a
graveyard that is made up of all their old habits.

Question: Let’s go back to the cobra. The cobra jumps up; an instant
decision is made, whatever it might be. Does that decision leave an imprint
on the mind?

Papaji: That kind of action is just a reaction. It is an automatic response –

kill it or run away – that doesn’t come from any thought processes. You take
spontaneous dictation at times like this, and the body responds accordingly.
This kind of reaction is not going to land in your mind and stick there.
When I was young, still in the Punjab, I saw a mother who had a baby
that was in a cradle. A snake had crawled into the cradle and curled itself up
there next to the baby. It was winter and it may have felt that it had found a
warm place to sleep. The child was kicking its legs in the spontaneous way
that babies do, but the snake didn’t seem to be bothered by it. The mother
was afraid to approach the cradle in case she startled the snake into a
reaction. Since her husband was at work, she called in some of the
neighbours.
We all watched the scene for a while and eventually it was decided that
the snake and the baby would be left alone. The snake had been there for
almost an hour and hadn’t showed any hostile intentions. We all left quietly
and the baby was left alone by the snake. The baby never felt that the snake
was an enemy, a danger that needed a quick reaction of some sort. He neither
accepted nor rejected the snake because he didn’t have a mind that could do
either. He just carried on doing what he normally did: lying there and kicking
occasionally.
I remember another incident like this. There was a very young girl from
Norway who used to meditate on the banks of the Ganga. This was a long
time ago. She lived like a sadhu and even used to go begging for her food.
Some of the local Indian families used to fill her begging bowl when she
went on her rounds. A retired couple used to feed her most of the time. I used
to take her fruits once in a while, because when you live on begged food, you
don’t usually get a very healthy diet. One day, when I went to see her, she
was meditating by the river with her eyes closed. A big snake, maybe six feet
long, had crawled over her and part of it was resting on her hand. I decided
not to disturb her because I knew that the snake might react if she suddenly
jumped up. This girl used to meditate for hours at a time. Sometimes she
would sit for four hours without moving. I watched her sit with her eyes
closed for about an hour, unaware of what was going on. At the end of that
time, the snake stirred itself and slowly crawled away. She carried on
meditating. She hadn’t been aware that the snake had come, and she hadn’t
been aware that it had left.
When she finally opened her eyes, I gave her the fruits and told her what
had happened. She had no idea that a snake had been sitting on her. At first
she didn’t believe me, but then I showed her the line that the snake had left.
She had been sitting on a sandy beach, and the snake had left a clear trail
when it came and left.
Anyway, to go back to your question, when you have an encounter like
this, the response comes instantly and automatically. Where these instant
reactions come from, I do not know. They just come. And when they do, such
reactions don’t stick to you.

Question: I am surprised that you say that you don’t know where such
decisions come from. Don’t enlightened people know where their reactions
come from? Would not someone like the Buddha know where such decisions
came from?

Papaji: I don’t know. But I don’t think he would have left his wife if he had
sat by her bed and considered the matter with his mind. She was a beautiful
woman and he was in love with her. Some impulse arose from within, and in
response he just got up and left. This kind of impulse is so strong. When it
happens, you don’t know where it comes from. You don’t think about it, you
just obey it.

Live neither in the entanglements of outer things

nor in inner feelings of emptiness.

This is samsara and nirvana. Don’t be attached either to forms or to the

emptiness that underlies them. Entanglements with outer things means
getting caught up in things that have forms. At the same time be careful that
you don’t get attached to ideas about emptiness. Don’t accept or reject either
of them.

Be serene in the oneness of things,

and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.

If you behave like this, everything will take care of itself. Most people,
when they try to stop activity or work, are still working because ‘When you
try to stop activity and achieve passivity, your very effort fills you with
activity’.

Question: [new questioner] In themselves there is nothing unskilled about

either activity or passivity. It’s the effort involved in them that taints them.

Papaji: Now you are making an effort to uphold or reject some theory.

Question: That’s true, but I am talking like this because of a small thing that
happened this morning. I woke up very early. It seemed like a beautiful day,
and at first I just lay in my bed enjoying it. Then I made a resolve to sit in
meditation for half an hour because that is something I have been told I
should do. After five minutes it didn’t really seem to be worthwhile, so I
went for an early morning walk in the Botanical Gardens instead. The resolve
disappeared, but I was still very quiet and peaceful. Is it not this choice to
make an effort that causes the trouble?

Papaji: Yes.

[Long pause]

Anyway, all this is beyond language.

[Another long pause]

Let us suppose that you are proceeding from here, from where you are
right now, to a destination, a goal. You have come to this place; it’s as far as
you can go. In front of you is this vastness, this emptiness. You can call it
‘presence’ if you want to. You can call it anything you like. You have
brought your mind with you to this place, and as your mind contemplates this
vastness, it keeps up its old habits of describing and understanding. It wants
to see this vastness as an object it can describe and understand. This is how
the mind functions; it needs outside objects to see, outside objects that can
validate its understanding. The effort is still there, and this effort attempts to
feed the mind with this thing called ‘understanding’. This experience, though,
is not complete. In fact, the real experience is not there at all. All you have is
a mind that is maintaining itself, maintaining its dualistic view. This is the
nature of the mind: it organises all the information it receives in such a way
that it can come to the conclusion that its world view of a perceiver and a
perceived is the only valid one.
You have to stop contemplating this emptiness, this vastness, from
outside, because while you are outside it, it will just be another idea that
keeps the mind busy. Step into this emptiness, without thinking about it in
any way. How? Give up the mind’s conviction that this is something that you
‘do’. You can’t lift a foot and walk into it because there are no physical
dimensions there. You can’t do it by an act of will, by deciding to do it,
because while such thoughts are active, you are in the mind and not in
emptiness. You have been cheated by the imagination of the mind which
thinks that this is a problem that can be solved by thinking or doing.
Imagination has to end. It has to end at this point where you first contemplate
the vastness in front of you. Everything you see, hear, feel, think, and taste is
just your imagination playing with itself. It has to end here, and it has to end
for good. All samsara, billions of years of past and future imagination, this
everlasting imagination of the mind, is just taking place in an instant. All
samsara is just an expanded moment of imagination that ends up making us
believe that the millions of years of experiences we go through are real. This
is the ultimate truth that you have to come to by stopping this imagination
that makes you dream of worlds and lives and efforts geared towards
liberation.

Question: I’m painfully aware that what you say is true. I can understand
that all this is sustained by my habit of thinking, choosing, deciding,
understanding, and so on. But knowing this doesn’t flick the ‘off’ switch in
my head. I make decisions, and I know that I make decisions, but I am not
even sure who is making these decisions. That’s how ignorant I am of what is
going on inside me.

Papaji: You don’t take any decisions at all. You just think you do. You think
your mind is taking all these decisions, but that idea is also part of your
imagination. Something else is compelling you to do the things that you do,
but you are not aware of it. You will not be aware of it while you engage in
the thought process. You need to find that place of no thought, no
imagination, the place of no effort. Find it, and there will be no return.
Instantly it will happen, but it won’t happen while you are thinking, or trying
not to think. Without thinking or understanding, you have to find this place of
no thought, and stay there.
 36

Drop the idea that you are on a route to a

destination

Papaji: [speaking to someone in front of him] Here you are, standing in front
of emptiness. You have arrived at the last place, the last piece of land that
you can put your foot on. You can’t lift up your foot and plant it any nearer.
It’s all emptiness around you now. What can effort do for you now? Physical
movement will not help you. Mental effort and imagination will not help you.
Relegate imagination to the past. It’s over. Let it be. You are here, and
everything in front of you is just emptiness. What is to be done now?

Question: No judgement, no energy, no effort.

Papaji: Yes, it’s the end of all this.

Question: ‘Just fall into the emptiness.’ I want to do it, but there is still a
residual doubt that it can happen to me.

Papaji: That will hold you back. You are still making an effort to hold on to
doubt. This doubt belongs to the past.

Question: [new questioner] It’s like making an effort to hold onto a cliff
instead of letting go and dropping.

Papaji: Don’t involve thought or effort or imagination in this decision to

drop. Let it happen by itself, without the thinking process.

Question: It sounds simple.

Papaji: It is simple. It only gets complicated when you start to think about it
and wonder how you can accomplish it.
Question: When one reaches this edge, this place where one can’t take
another step, should one continue with the enquiry at this point?

Papaji: No. Drop the idea that you are on a route to a destination.

Question: No destination?

Papaji: Nothing at all. Have no relationship to anything at all. Don’t touch

any kind of relationship.
When you don’t touch any relationship, you will find yourself in a place
that people have used many words to describe, without success. I will add
some good ones. ‘Amazement’ is one of them. You feel ‘ridiculous’. That’s
another one that people don’t use. You suddenly understand how stupid you
have been, how wilfully blind, and your past stupidity suddenly seems very
ridiculous. ‘Dumbfounded’ is another word that I like because you are
suddenly aware that it is nothing like what you thought it might be.

Question: When I return home, I have to write a report for my university on

how I spent my time here. [Everyone in the room laughs]

Papaji: His university let him come here for five months, but he has to tell
them what he has done with his time when he goes home.
One other man wanted to come and see me about fifteen years ago. He
was a maths professor, and he asked his university for a month’s leave to
come to India to see me, but the application was refused.
This man was determined to come so he said, ‘If you don’t give me
permission I will resign and go anyway. You are not going to stop me by
refusing this application.’
When his university realised that it couldn’t keep him at work, it gave
him a one year leave of absence. He was apparently a brilliant mathematician
and his university didn’t want to let him go. It gave him a bit of work to do,
but he told me it was something he could do in a couple of hours. That was a
good exchange for a year in India.
Your university has also given you time to come here. You will have to
write something to prove you have not wasted your time. Start with the joy of
being ridiculous. [Everyone laughs again] You can write a very good book if
you start from this place.
 37

The power that you are absorbed in looks after you

Question: There seem to be two ways of reacting in the world. One is

spontaneous, and the other is acting through the mind.

Papaji: You are always acting independently of the mind, but your thoughts
make you think otherwise. It is just an old habit to think that the mind decides
what you do. Actions will go on whether you think about them or not. You
don’t need a mind to work or perform actions; you just think you do. When
the mind is not present, work is done efficiently; very efficiently. I can cite
my own experiences on this subject, and I have to cite them because not
many other people seem to talk about this subject. I will tell you a story that
comes from my own experience. It is not something I have picked up second-
hand.
It took place in 1954. I was loading up a ship with manganese ore that
was destined for Amsterdam. It was what is called ‘offshore loading’, which
means that the transfer of the ore did not take place in the port. I took a boat
out to the ship and spent the whole day with the captain of the ship. When the
ship had been loaded to everyone’s satisfaction, the hatches were closed. I
received a certificate of delivery from the captain and a bank draft from the
purchaser. I wanted to go back to my headquarters in Bangalore to deliver the
draft in person, but it was already 11 p.m. at night and the distance from the
port of Mangalore to Bangalore was over 300 miles. It was not an easy drive
either. The first section was a difficult and slow mountain road that had many
dangerous curves.
Since my company wanted the money urgently, I decided to drive
through the night and then have a short nap on the other side of the
mountains. I had had a hard day, and I knew that if I slept on the Mangalore
side of the mountains, I would wake up late and not get to Bangalore until
very late in the day. This mountain road had eleven hairpin bends, and it rose
from sea level to over 5,000 feet before descending to the plains on the other
side. There was a well-known coffee house on the other side of the hill that
all the truck drivers used to use. There was nowhere else to stop on the way.
Landslides were common, and there were even elephants that would
occasionally wander onto the road and block the traffic. It was a narrow road
with a steep drop on one side. If an elephant appeared in front of you, you
needed to keep your distance and wait for it to wander off. If you annoyed
one of these elephants and made it charge you, there was nowhere to run
away to.
The most difficult section of the road was about ten miles long, and one
needed to be very alert to navigate it safely, especially in the middle of the
night. What happened? I fell asleep at the wheel, even before I reached this
dangerous section, and when I woke up, I was off the mountains, and well on
the way to Bangalore. I calculated that I must have driven about 50 km while
I was asleep, navigating many tight bends on the way. When I woke up on
the Bangalore road, I felt completely refreshed. I knew I had had a very good
night’s sleep. Once I woke up, I realised that I didn’t need any more rest or
sleep. Being completely refreshed, I was able to drive all the way to
Bangalore without taking another break. Who was driving this car while the
body slept in it? Even today I still ponder this question, this mystery.
Something was looking after me, making the unconscious body do the right
things at the right time. There was no mind and no body involved, no one
who thought, ‘I must be careful as I drive round this bend’.
I can tell you another story, not as extreme as this one, but it is still
interesting. I arrived in Lucknow in 1947 from the Punjab. I was working
because I had to support all the relatives who had come with me from what is
now Pakistan. I occasionally used to get absorbed in states in which I wasn’t
really aware of what was going on outside me. I would walk around and get
things done, without ever being really aware of what the body was doing. I
wasn’t even noticing what was happening around me, but it didn’t matter.
Something was looking after me, keeping the body safe and making it do
what it had to do.
The same thing used to happen while I was working in Madras. I would
walk from Mylapore to Mount Road, and even though I tried to pay attention
to the traffic, I would find that outer awareness would disappear. I would find
myself at my destination with no memory of crossing several roads.
I did have one accident though, and that was in Lucknow around 1948. I
was walking from Lalbagh to the Post Office at Hazratganj when I was
knocked down by a car that speeded past. In those days there were still
prewar cars on the road that had running boards, those flat pieces of metal
that used to stick out on the sides so that people could stand on them and ride
on the outside of the car. I was hit by an old Ford that hit me from behind so
hard, the running board detached itself and came off. When I realised what
had happened to me, I saw it lying next to me on the road. Prior to the
accident I had been in one of these states of absorption I was telling you
about, so I don’t remember anything about the accident myself. I was given
all the details afterwards by the people who crowded around my felled body
in the street. It was a hit-and-run job, they said, and all the people assumed
that I must have been badly injured because I had been hit hard by a speeding
car. I stood up, though, completely unharmed. There was a tear in my pants,
but when I rolled up the leg to see what the damage was underneath, there
was just a small graze. The spectators all wanted to take me off to the nearest
police station to make a report, but, since I had not been injured, I ignored all
their suggestions.
These have been my experiences. Not only can you live and work without
a mind, you can also live and work without any awareness of the outside
world at all. Who will take care of you? The power that you are absorbed in
looks after you. It gives dictation, and the body obeys its instructions. This is
a way of living that you have to experience by yourself. It is not something
that you can practise.
Some time back we had a discussion about the reactions one has when a
snake suddenly appears. When you are in this state, you will not have to think
about what to do, or ask others for advice. The right response will come
spontaneously and automatically. There will be no doubts or thoughts at all.

Question: When you were working in the mines, there must have been lots
of things that you had to think about. Appointments, accounts, papers to go
through, and so on. How do you manage a job like this if you don’t think or
plan or organise your time?
Papaji: [laughing] It’s like driving that car in the night. Something makes
you do the right thing at the right time, even if you are not aware of what you
are doing or why you are doing it. I have had many experiences like this.

Question: [new questioner] We had a discussion like this some time ago.
Actually, it was a long time ago. You mentioned three different kinds of
reactions. This car incident – being hit by a car while being unaware of either
the vehicle or the body – was one of the three types you mentioned. I was hit
by a rickshaw in the bazaar some time ago. I got up, turned round and my
instant reaction was anger because I wasn’t in the middle of the road. I was in
a place where the rickshaw shouldn’t have been. Then, without really
thinking about it, the anger subsided. I realised there was no point in getting
angry, so the anger just subsided and disappeared. That was the second type
of reaction. There was a third type of response in which you get really angry
with the person who has hurt you and respond by shouting at him or even
hitting him. These were the three types you talked about.

Papaji: Yes, I remember talking about that. In one case there is no one to
react. In the second there is a brief reaction, after which you return to your
normal state, and in the third, you lose control of your emotions. Being hit by
the car comes into the first category.

Question: I know it’s not the same thing, but many years ago, when I used to
be a heavy drinker, I occasionally used to black out – have periods when I
knew nothing at all. Though I would have no memory of these states later, I
could safely drive a car in them, and later have no recollection of having done
this. These states can last for an hour or more. You can do complicated things
well. People who watch you doing them have no idea that you are drunk, and
afterwards you have no memory of having performed any of these actions.
I read somewhere that people who get into these states, through drugs or
alcohol, are making a kind of secret appeal to the Self to take them over and
be responsible for their actions. It’s not actually a conscious desire for
drunken oblivion, but an unconscious desire to reconnect with the Self that
takes you over when you can no longer take care of yourself. I don’t suppose
you would agree with this.
Papaji: No, you can’t reach the Self through these methods. These are states
in which the unconscious mind can look after you, but they are still subtle
states of mind.
The mind can have extraordinary powers, but they are still in the mental
realm. I was living and working in Bombay in 1932. One of my neighbours
came to see me and said, ‘My cousin has come from Saurashtra. He is only
sixteen years old, and there is a prediction that he will only live to be
eighteen. His case has been taken up by one of the Maharajas of the princely
states in that area because he has remarkable powers. He is taking him to
London at his own expense.’
‘What’s so special about him?’ I asked.
‘You can ask him any question you like, and he will give you the correct
reply. The right answer automatically comes to him and he says it. And if you
write something and put it in your pocket, he can tell you what is on the piece
of paper, even if he has never seen it before. You can come and see him and
test him if you don’t believe me.’
I have always been interested in cases like this, but at the same time I
tend to be very sceptical. I like to test such people to make sure that they are
not cheating.
I thought to myself, ‘This boy is from Saurashtra. I will put a Persian
poem in my pocket, in the original Persian script, and see what he makes of
it.’
I went along to see him. There were many people crowding around him,
thinking that they could get answers to future events.
‘My wife is pregnant. Will it be a boy or a girl?’
‘I made a business deal last week. Will I show a good profit from it?’
My neighbours were soaking up his words, and believing every one of
them.
When there was a break in the questioning, I asked, ‘I have a paper in my
pocket. Can you read what is written on it?’
Without hesitation, the boy recited the Persian poem, a language he didn’t
know, and he did it with a good Persian accent.
I asked him, ‘How did you learn to do this?’
 He said, ‘I didn’t learn. Nobody taught me. I just found out I could do
these things. I don’t know where the words come from. People ask me things,
the words come out of my mouth, and they are always the right ones.’
These are mental tricks, siddhis that either come naturally or can be
acquired by effort. They are not a consequence of the no-mind state that I was
talking about.

Question: I didn’t know you read Persian. When did you learn?

Papaji: It was a compulsory subject at school. In the Punjab there are strong
cultural ties to Persia. To get a job in the government, you had to pass exams
in both Urdu and Persian, so everyone was taught these subjects at school. I
liked Persian, so I kept it up after I left school. I had a Persian poetry book
with me in Bombay because I liked reading Persian poetry. Swamiji [Swami
Ramanananda] still sometimes sends me Persian poems from
Tiruvannamalai.

Question: Do you still read stuff like this? Do you still have the time and the
inclination to read poetry?

Papaji: I don’t have so much time nowadays, and I didn’t really have much
time then either. I was very busy earning a living.

Question: Maybe it was your good luck that you didn’t have time for
reading. You didn’t have time to fill your mind with ideas.

Papaji: I was born in a place where there was little or no literature about
freedom. I came from a cultured, well-read family, but books on this subject
were simply not available. We were a small brahmin enclave in a
predominantly Muslim area. The only religious talk was about Islam and
mosques. We didn’t even have many Hindu rituals. I think this was good
because I might otherwise have got lost in books and rituals. Nobody ever
told me, ‘You must do this practice or that practice’. That background was
not there.

Question: [from the man who had to write about his visit] Which part of
India was that?
Papaji: A part of the Punjab that is now in Pakistan.

[Pause]

Words can take you away from the Self if you get caught up in them, but
if you follow them back to where they originated, they can also take you back
to the Self. You see something written on a page. Before it was written it was
a word in someone’s mind. For that word to have emerged, there must have
been a prior thought of it. From where has this word been taken? From where
has it been stolen? From silence. Why not go back to the silence, the ocean of
silence from where all words have to emerge? The formulation of words in
the mind is actually an impediment to an experience of this silence. The
silence is there all the time, but when a word forms, you are obstructing the
flow of this inner silence. There is a silent flow that is going on between us,
but if you utter a word, you will lose the contact with that flow. Listen, and
be watchful. That’s all you have to do.
Can you write about this in your report? This is a true teaching, a true
understanding, but what can you write about it? Anything you add to this, any
words that you use to describe it, are a falsity. They will be false; not the
truth. Even the word ‘silence’ is false. Just keep silence; don’t talk about it.
All obstructions, all manifestation, arise from ‘I’. Fear, everything that
appears in front of you, past, present and future, all these things come from
this one word ‘I’. It has to come from somewhere. Why not go to that place
yourself and see what is there? Find where this word ‘I’ comes from and all
will be over. Everyone can do this, but no one can help you. No efforts will
take you there, and no one can tell you what it is. You don’t need anything to
find that place.

Question: Why are we sitting here if we don’t need help?

Papaji: To hear what I am saying. No one has told you this before. Why are
you sitting here? To hear me say, ‘Don’t sit “there”, sit “here”’. This is why
you come: to find out how to sit ‘here’ and not ‘there’.

Question: [new questioner] It’s fun being here. It beats being anywhere else.
Papaji: You have come here to be here. You have come here and nowhere
else. Who else will tell you this? Everyone else will tell you, ‘Go there! Go
there! Go there!’ A teacher who tells you to do something or go somewhere
doesn’t deserve to be a teacher. If he tells you to do something, to make some
effort that will produce results sometime in the future, he is not a true teacher
at all. What shall we call him? He is a preacher. The teacher, if we want to
use that word at all, is sitting in silent truth. We speak about truth by being in
that silence. Silence is your teacher, here, now, within you. If you want a
teacher, this is the teacher. If you want satsang, this is satsang. Where else
will you go for satsang? Come ‘here’. ‘Here’ means silence. Not even a
single thought should stir in this silence. This is satsang, association with
your own Self. True sanga is to remain as you are. If you can do this, this is
satsang.

Question: [new questioner] It’s here.

Papaji: Association with the Self is alone satsang. Nothing else deserves the
name. See for yourself. When you are with the Self, there is no one to cheat
you, no one to mislead you. There is no misleading, no cheating, no speaking,
nothing but truth itself. That place where there is no duality at all is called
satsang. Going anywhere else except ‘here’ will not help you. Try it and see.
Go to the gods, and they will try to fool you.
They will say, ‘Worship me, and I will give you what you want’.
These are the promises of the gods. Why should you listen to them and do
their bidding? Why don’t you have this satsang instead? When is the time
when you are not having satsang? Tell me! When is the time when you are
not having satsang?

Question: There’s no time. There’s no time that is not satsang.

Papaji: [laughing] Here you are! This is satsang! Satsang must always be
there, continuously, otherwise it’s not satsang.

Question: [apparently having the satsang experience that Papaji had been
speaking of] You’re right. It’s ‘ridiculous’.
Papaji: [laughing] He is very beautiful!

Question: So are you.

Papaji: This is satsang! This is satsang! I want to kiss you. He’s in a very
nice state. Let me see your face. This is a face I can kiss.

Question: [laughing] It’s not going to work.

 38

Mind is the transactions that take place between the

subject and the objects you retrieve from the past

Papaji: [reading out a letter]

I am thirty-two years old and luckily married to a man I love. I

have a still unfulfilled dream to be a writer. This is the second
letter that I have written to you. The first was just to find out
myself, but I want to know this from you. I realise that my life
has a momentum that is already determined by circumstances, by
the history of my family, place and time, where I was born, and
so on. It has been lived much more within the western
understanding of things. I have understood from this western
understanding that there is no space for freedom at all because
here one is constantly subject to society’s laws. I realise that all
this is ‘not me’, even though part of me is good both at
understanding these laws and dealing with the circumstances
that one usually calls ‘reality’. Though my life has been built
upon them, from somewhere else I hear a voice that has nothing
to do with this life and these circumstances. It is as if a spirit
from outside has chosen me and wants to use me for some
purpose. This purpose is to find and communicate truth.

This ‘something’ comes to people. As she says, it picks people when they
are ready to listen to what it has to say. Everyone has some background. You
can see this very clearly from this letter.

In my everyday language I can say I want to become a writer

and communicate my message, the content of which I can only
vaguely define. It gains shape when the spirit leads me, but my
circumstances are such that the part of me that lives with the
 real world occupies most of the time. It feels as if it is afraid to
let go and let something else in. My wish is to connect myself
with this spirit, which I feel is my own source, but which at the
same time is a universal source. I want to make it the force that
leads my life and uses its capacities to bring its voice into the
world. What do I have to do? I ask myself, but then a voice
speaks to me: ‘I am here. I am here. I can tell you what you have
to do. You only have to remain in touch with me. I want to speak
through you. That is why I am here.’

This woman doesn’t know what she is writing, but she is translating the
experience very well.

[The voice says:] ‘I have no name. I have no form. I have no

message. I am. I am truth. I am truth itself. I am and am not. I
have no voice. I have no language, but I talk. I appear here and
now, but I exist beyond space, beyond time. I cannot be
understood, but you will understand me if you will look right
now into the eyes of Poonjaji. If you look right now into the eyes
of Poonjaji you will know that I am within both of you.’
This is what happened to me when I wrote my first letter to
you. The moment I asked a question, the answer was there. My
mind was suddenly empty, instantly filled with shining
consciousness, total awareness, liberating non-attachment. I
remained in this state for many hours. It vanished gradually over
a period of several days.
The experience described in my first letter is still in the
background of my everyday consciousness. I want to get access
to it again and again. I feel an encounter with you could be the
next step on my way. I would love to visit you for about a week in
the beginning of December. Dear Poonjaji, I’m looking forward
to your answer and send you my best wishes.

Question: I can see that everything I think and perceive has some element of
mind. You are asking me to drop the mind. I want what you want, but it’s not
happening to me. You have set up this teaching inside me, and sometimes I
feel I am about to burst with it. And all the time I feel I just want to go home
to the Self.

Papaji: You are at home.

Question: The mind appreciates the truth of that statement, but the
knowledge of being ‘home’ doesn’t arise in me.

Papaji: Yes. This appreciation will only take place when you do really know
that you are home. The mind will celebrate its own death. It will no more be
the mind. There will be a real celebration when you are reborn into your own
home.

Question: I’m waiting for that step to happen. Meanwhile, I find that
whatever comes up inside me is still mind. It is the mind appreciating ideas
about the Self, or looking for the Self, or describing itself to itself.

Papaji: Yes. Mind is mind when it clings to any object, any object from the
past. Mind is the transactions that take place between the subject and the
objects you retrieve from the past. However, there is a place within you
where that transaction doesn’t take place. That is the place of celebration.
You live in the mind, in its thoughts. Because your world is
circumscribed by the mind, and because you can’t think or know anything
that lies beyond the mind, you don’t even have a word for what is prior to all
this mental activity.
Mind takes you back to the past through the senses that are always
clinging to affairs of the past. Everything you see is a creation of the mind,
and mind is always in the past. In the present moment, where time does not
exist, mind does not exist either. Find where mind comes from, watch it
disappear in that place, and you will discover that time disappears along with
it. The disappearance of the mind is not something that you should be
worried about. You will manage very well without it. In that place I am
speaking of, the word ‘mind’ won’t exist, and nor will any other word. You
don’t need words to be yourself, to speak to yourself. When the words arise,
they take you away from the Self. Words are always an obstruction, a barrier,
a hindrance to your own silence. When you enjoy yourself in your true home,
no word enters to describe it or interfere with it. It is a continuous flow,
uninterrupted by words or time.
This is a place of transcendence. No one speaks of it. Words don’t apply
to it or describe it. The Buddhists have a nice word in their dictionary that
points towards it. Have you heard of ‘tathata’? Usually it is translated as
‘suchness’. Something that just is as it is. If you want to use a word at all, you
can use a word like this. One that doesn’t put new concepts in your mind; one
that just points or hints at this underlying truth.
Does anyone here with a Buddhist background know more about this
word? It’s a nice one.

Question: [new questioner] Yes, it means ‘suchness’. There is also a term,

‘tathagata’, that the Buddha used to describe himself as ‘the one who has
gone beyond’.

Papaji: Yes, I have heard both words before. I don’t know Pali, so I can’t
really comment on these words with any great authority. ‘Thus come’ is
another translation I have heard of this term. It is a reference to this instant,
this present moment.
The Buddhists say, ‘Gone, gone, gone beyond…’. You go to the other
shore; then you go beyond the other shore; and then you go beyond the
beyond. As you move towards the other shore, you are still in duality, still in
the mind. You can contemplate your direction and your destination, but to
finish the mind, you have to go ‘beyond the beyond’, past that place you can
fix in your mind.
There is another word that is used to denote this moment, this situation
when mind has gone. It is the exclamation ‘Swaha!’ that follows the
disappearance of the mind in the formless beyond. I have asked many people
about this word without getting any satisfactory replies. This is the last
utterance of the mind as it disappears, or the utterance that comes when mind
has actually gone. It has no particular meaning. Mind cannot grasp or
describe this state, so the word that comes from that place cannot be given a
meaning that can be understood by the mind.
After the awakening, the utterance is there. What can we cling to in that
place? Who or what can cling to the wisdom, the enlightenment, the
emancipation, the freedom that is there? Even this word is useless there.
Everything is finished here. Samsara and nirvana have gone, because they
exist in relation to each other. The mind ends; manifestation ends; the creator
ends; creation ends. The ‘indweller’ has gone entirely. This is the total release
from the mind, from the never-ending cycle of birth, death and manifestation.
It happens in an instant.
 39

There have been instances in which a single vision

changed and transformed a person’s life

Question: I was sitting in my room last night and there was a very beautiful
energy there. Suddenly, I had a very strong feeling, a very strong sense that
Ramana was in the room. I didn’t see him; it just felt like a very strong
presence. It felt so real while it was happening, but afterwards I started to
wonder if this was some sort of hallucination.

Papaji: You had a vision of someone who is free, liberated. Even if you
didn’t actually see a physical form, it is still a kind of vision. A liberated
being came to you in the form of a presence that appeared to be pure and
subtle thought. But when you returned to your old foolish mind, you
interpreted the meaning in the context of your past training and called it a
vision. And then you doubted it and called it ‘a hallucination’.

Question: The reason I am asking this question is that whenever I meditate in

a place that is associated with a particular spiritual figure, I tend to see
images of that person. When I was in Dharamsala, I saw the Buddha, and
when I was in some Christian places, I saw Jesus. That’s what I am
wondering: if these events are hallucinations, or something else.

Papaji: The outer dress, the form of the vision, may be different, but the
power behind them is the same. You can dismiss such things as
‘hallucinations’, but there have been instances in which a single vision
changed and transformed a person’s life.
There was a diamond merchant whose wife used to give away all his
wealth as alms to whichever beggars came to her door. This so annoyed the
merchant, he took to locking up all his valuables whenever he went out.
Whenever he left home, he would lock up the whole house except for the
kitchen in an attempt to prevent his wife from giving away all his wealth.
One day, while he was out of the house, working in his shop, a brahmin
priest came to the door and asked for alms. His wife had nothing to give him
apart from the jewellery she was wearing.
She took off one of her earrings and said to him, ‘Take this and sell it.
You can use the money to look after yourself for a while.’
The priest gratefully accepted it, but when he went to sell it, he ended up
in the shop of the diamond merchant whose wife had given him the earring.
The earring had a diamond in it, so the priest had just taken it to the nearest
diamond merchant. Since the merchant knew that his wife wore identical
earrings, his first thought was that this priest must have stolen the earring
from her. However, he didn’t want to make any accusations before he had
any proof. He took the priest back to his house and asked his wife if she
could produce the earrings that she normally wore.
His wife, who did not want her husband to know that she had been giving
away valuable jewellery to a complete stranger, told him that she still had
them both and that they were in their puja room. Since the husband never
went there, she thought she could safely say that they were there.
However, on this occasion the husband insisted on checking. They went
to the puja room and found both earrings in a small pot that contained an
offering to the deity. The family deity was Vittal, Lord Krishna. The
merchant went back to his shop, satisfied that the priest was not a thief.
The meeting with the priest somehow transformed the diamond merchant.
The events of the day changed him from being a miserly businessman who
begrudged his wife’s charitable activities to a man who no longer had any
interest in money or material possessions. He sat in his shop for some time
before coming to a momentous conclusion.
‘These diamonds are not bringing me any happiness. They just make me a
miserable and worried man. I will renounce the world of possessions and
profits and become a sannyasin.’
He closed his shop, went home and announced to his wife that he had
decided to renounce the world and live as a wandering monk.
This is not some fictional children’s tale that I am telling you. This is the
true story of a saint, Purandara Dasa, who even today is widely revered in
Karnataka. Books have been written about this story; even films have been
made about the events which happened that day. Purandara Dasa left home
and became one of the most famous saints of Karnataka. He also became well
known as a Carnatic musician, and the songs he composed are still widely
sung today.
You could say that the merchant ‘hallucinated’ an earring in his wife’s
puja room that wasn’t really there, but I prefer to regard this as a life-
transforming vision. When something like this happens, the power of the Self
is interceding in your life to push you in a new direction. A true vision is one
that changes your life. Some versions of the story say that it was Krishna
himself who took the form of the priest to bring about the transformation of
the miserly merchant.
You could take some drug and have hallucinations that tigers are
attacking you. When you get back to normal, you haven’t been changed or
transformed, you are just happy that you are no longer under the influence of
a hallucinatory drug. A true vision compels you to move away from an old
life to a new life. Its effect is purifying and long-lasting.
You can see demons and monsters that fill you with fear, but how many
people can say that they have seen the divine in a vision, and that this vision
has transformed them? Very few. To have a true vision of the divine you
need to have a very sattvic mind. A divine, transforming vision can only
manifest to an utterly pure mind. To such a mind an image of God can
appear, an image that is so strong, the mind itself will disappear. The vision
appears to that pure mind, and in response that pure mind dissolves and
disappears. The mind will disappear, and the vision that prompted its
disappearance will disappear along with it.

Question: I feel that a message came to me while I was having this vision.
An instruction to do something. Should I trust it? Should I do what it says?

Papaji: Did you write it down at the time it happened?

Question: No.

Papaji: You should have. These visions take place in a state that is neither
waking, nor dreaming nor sleeping. These kinds of communications are
worth noting down. Because the mind is not working normally in that state, it
may not later remember accurately what was going on.
 40

This fire of knowledge will bring about

understanding and knowledge

Question: I feel I have an incredible grace in my life. I have everything I

could ask for, but even so old habits still persist, and I don’t know how to
facilitate the process of just letting them go. They tend to be very subtle
things, old frames of mind, or certain emotional patterns. That kind of thing.

Papaji: What you need to eliminate is not the habits themselves but the sense
of doership that attaches itself to them. Habits, by themselves, are not
harmful. What is harmful is the idea, ‘I have these habits’ or, ‘I am
performing these activities’. Habits will continue after enlightenment. They
will not obstruct the enlightenment because they are just patterns of
behaviour that the body has been programmed to do. You have a store, a
warehouse full of activities that you have to undertake. That is the destiny of
the body, and while it continues to live, it will fulfil that destiny. When
doership goes, you will no longer be interested in what the body does or
doesn’t do. In that moment of enlightenment there will be a conflagration that
will burn up your sense of doership. Along with it the store of karma for
future lives will also be burned, bringing your incarnations to an end. This
fire of knowledge will bring about understanding and knowledge. It will burn
so thoroughly, tendencies will no longer land in the memory and be the cause
of future karma and future lives. The mind will be burned, and when that
happens there will be no place to store the tendencies, desires and habits.
If you have attained this state, the various habits will continue, but they
will not plant seeds that have to be harvested as future lives and future karma.
Your life and its destined script will be like a bullet that has been fired from a
gun. The initial velocity of the bullet causes it to travel a certain distance and
then drop to the ground. Afterwards, it will not jump up and rush off again.
The destiny of a life in which the mind has died is like the momentum of this
bullet. It will carry the person to the end of his physical life, but after that the
body will die, and there will be no more rebirth.

Question: The habits already seem to be less strong than before. They don’t
seem to have the force they used to.

Papaji: When freedom comes, all these things will seem like a dream,
something distant that doesn’t really touch you. Some reactions may be there,
problems will come and be dealt with, but they will not make deep roots that
will cause you suffering or bring about future reactions.

Question: I can sometimes feel that this is happening.

Papaji: When doership is absent, suffering will also be absent. Doership will
die at the moment that freedom arises.

Question: You said earlier that I was ‘committed’ to these habits. That’s how
it feels sometimes.

Papaji: ‘Commitments’ are to something that belongs to the past. These

impressions which are responsible for your current birth all come from your
past. They have brought you suffering and a continuous sense of doership,
but it is not all negative. There is a credit side as well as a debit side. You
must have been working towards freedom in your past or you would not be
here today. You may not think that you have been very successful, but unless
you have millions of merits accumulated from past lives, the thought ‘I want
to be free’ could not arise in you, and you would not be here today asking
these questions. It has been said that you need a mountain of merits the size
of Mount Meru before this desire can arise in you. From where has this desire
‘I want to be free’ arisen? This desire is a beautiful desire, and it is one that is
rarely expressed.
When you were growing up, how many people talked about this desire to
you? When you went to restaurants with your friends and relatives, what did
you talk about? Mostly each others’ problems: divorces, families,
relationships, jobs, personal dramas. Did you ever sit down with a member of
your family and hear him or her say, ‘I am looking for freedom and I am
desperate to get it. How much longer do I have to wait? It did not happen
today. When will it happen?’ Did you ever participate in conversations of this
kind?

Question: Not very often.

Papaji: [laughing] I think you are exaggerating. This is such a rarely

expressed sentiment, I doubt you heard it even once while you were growing
up. I am not talking about some intellectual discussion in which two people
exchange ideas on what freedom might be and how it might be attained; I am
speaking of two lovesick people who are hurting inside because they cannot
find a way to become one with freedom, their beloved. Many people speak
about this, but how many of them are actually suffering inside because they
cannot reach this elusive goal? That’s very, very rare and very, very precious.
This desire comes from a place that is not controlled by the mind. Mind
cannot absorb or digest a desire like this, but at the same time it cannot stop it
from arising and demanding your attention. When this desire for freedom
makes you sick with longing for it, it has the power to bring about that
freedom that it desires so badly. Just want it badly enough.
 41

You have to be serious, and you have to want

freedom to the exclusion of everything else

Question: Can you explain the distinction between videhamukti and

jivanmukti?

Papaji: Jivanmukti is freedom that comes before the death of the body.
While you are still alive you know and experience that you are free. Your
work is over, and you will live in freedom for the rest of your life.
Videhamukti means that freedom only comes at the moment of the death of
the physical body. I just had a conversation with Kavita about tendencies and
one’s commitment to them. You may know that you are free, and you may
even experience it directly from time to time, but if these tendencies still
bother you and catch you from time to time, then you are not truly free. You
will hitchhike from attachment to attachment until the moment of your death.
However, if these residual attachments are not strong, and if you have
directly experienced the Self consciously during your life, it is possible to
come to the full state of freedom at the moment of your death. This is what is
known as videhamukti.
There are very few jivanmuktas, very few.

Question: Ramana Maharshi?

Papaji: Yes, there are so few, if you survey the whole history of spirituality,
you will still only come up with a small number of names. We still revere
historical figures such as Sukadeva and King Janaka as great jivanmuktas
because this state is so rare. In jivanmuktas, prarabdha karma has been ended
and freedom has been definitively attained.

Question: These people who have become jivanmuktas must have come to
their last lives with very little karma. Jivanmuktas such as Ramana Maharshi
must have used up their karma quickly and then become enlightened.

Papaji: No, this is not the way it works. It is the other way round. Karma
does not end with freedom; it is freedom that ends karma. Karma is not spent
little by little until there is none left. There is no end to karma. When
liberation comes, there is a great bonfire that burns all past karma and all its
future consequences. When freedom, jivanmukti, has been attained,
impressions are no longer stored, and when impressions are no longer stored,
new karma is not created and births are no longer possible. A jivanmukta
knows that he is free. He knows that irrespective of what he does in his life,
he will always be free. There is no possibility of losing this state.
Others may have the experience of the Self, but it is not permanent. There
is forgetfulness, which takes one back to the mind for a while, followed by
recollection of one’s true nature, which takes one back to the Self. This is not
jivanmukti because in this state the mind and its tendencies have not been
permanently eradicated. A person who oscillates between the mind and the
Self while he is alive can become videhamukti when he dies, but he is not a
jivanmukta while he is alive.

Question: So the videhamukta has to try to maintain his Self-awareness by

effort, whereas the jivanmukta does not?

Papaji: Whether one has attained the state of jivanmukta through effort or no
effort, one knows that one is free of karmic bondage. There is no more
bondage and no more ignorance. Karma will continue to make the body
perform its activities, but it will not cause bondage since there is nothing and
no one left who can be affected by this karma.
For those who are not fully established in the Self, pending karma can be
moved forward to a future life, but the jivanmukta does not have this
possibility. This means that the destiny he has to live out in his final
incarnation often includes painful episodes, things that have to be gone
through because they cannot be put off to a subsequent life.

Question: But in the case of the person who has the experience of the Self
and then loses it, is there nothing he can do to become a jivanmukta? Or does
he just have to wait until the end of his life and hope that he will become
videhamukti?

Papaji: Sometimes it is your karma to have commitments and obligations

and to be caught up in them. When this happens there is nothing you can do
about them.
After final liberation one can sometimes see how all of one’s karma was
connected to past activities and events, but prior to that it just catches you,
and you have to endure it.
There is a story about the Buddha. While he was walking in the forest he
developed a headache. When he told Ananda about it, Ananda offered to go
to a nearby village to look for some medicine.
The Buddha replied, ‘No, wait. I don’t need any medicine. I know why I
have this headache. Two hundred and thirty-five lives ago I lived in a village
in which the monsoons had failed. The village pond slowly dried up, and
when there was just a small pool of water, the remaining fish started to flap
around in the mud. All the boys in the village began to stone the fish, just for
fun. I was one of those boys. I hit a fish and caused a major injury. That is
why I am having this headache now. Let me suffer. This is something that
has to happen to me.’
When freedom comes you sometimes know why certain problems have
come to you, but you can’t stop them from happening. All these things have
to be worked out. When freedom comes, there is no real suffering because
there is no longer an ‘I’ who identifies with the body that is suffering, but the
body still has to go through these events.

Question: [new questioner] Is this Buddha story a myth, or did it really

happen?

Papaji: You call your present state ‘real’ and these old stories you dismiss as
a ‘myth’. So long as there is a dream, there is a myth. In a dream a snake
appears to be a real threat to you, and its bite causes you suffering. You run
to a dream doctor to get an injection because you think this will end your
suffering. But when you wake up, you know that your dream story has no
more validity than a myth. When you know that your present state, this world
you call reality, is just a myth, a fiction, it will be over for you, and it will be
as if it never ever existed. This is the ultimate truth: nothing ever existed.
You cannot understand what I am talking about when I speak to you like this
because nothing I say is part of your experience. So, instead, I will talk to you
in this place where you find yourself, inhabiting this mythical realm that you
take to be so real. If we start from where you think you are right now, you
may be able to see where you need to end up.
Suffering is a good place to start, because everyone believes that he
suffers in one way or another. The Buddha taught that all are in suffering,
because that is where everyone thinks he is. His own quest began by seeing
suffering in his own city. He saw a sick man, an old man, a dead body and
became aware of the suffering that his family was trying so hard to protect
him from. He formulated a teaching that started from the statement that all
are in suffering, and then he taught a way by which that suffering could be
ended. When you believe in a myth, you have to start with that myth and then
move away from it. This dream world you live in is a myth, a fantasy. Since
you take it to be true, I will accept your complaint that you are suffering in it,
and I will give you advice on how to end your suffering and become free. But
while I am telling you all this, never for a moment do I actually accept that
you are really suffering, nor will I ever accept that the world you claim you
are living in is in any way real. For you this myth is true. Samsara, creation,
all the gods: they are all real for you because you have not seen through the
myth you have imposed on yourself.

Question: [new questioner] Ramana Maharshi spent several years sitting in

obscure corners of Tiruvannamalai after he first arrived there. He seemed to
be in a state of samadhi for most of the time. He wasn’t teaching during this
period, mostly because he was unable to communicate with anyone. During
these years of intense meditation or tapas, did nothing change inside him?
Was his experience of the Self deepening or stabilising during this period, or
did it stay the same?

Papaji: His enlightenment was complete and irrevocable before he ever came
to Tiruvannamalai. It happened in his house in Madurai when he was sixteen
years old.

Question: So he was a jivanmukta before he came to Tiruvannamalai?

Papaji: Yes, it doesn’t take time to be free, and it doesn’t take years to
stabilise in it. It happened in his family house, and there the boy
Venkataraman ‘disappeared’, leaving only the Self. Due to some past
tendencies he had a great attraction to Arunachala, so after a few weeks he
made his way there and never returned to his family. He sat down there as a
fully realised jivanmukta, closed his eyes and became immersed in some
meditative state.
After you have realised the Self, true meditation can start. In that state
there is nothing to understand or gain, so that which cannot be understood,
the Self, pulls you into itself and makes you focus on it unswervingly. When
all your attention is pulled into the Self and focused there, this is true
meditation. Other people meditate to achieve something. There is the
meditator, the object that is meditated on, and the act of meditating. A
transaction is continuously going on between these three entities. This is not
true meditation. It is a transaction, organised and sustained by an entity that is
trying to attain something.
I believe that real and constant meditation can only take place after
freedom has been discovered. This is what Ramana Maharshi was engaged in
after he came to Tiruvannamalai. He was sitting quietly, in solitude, simply
enjoying and celebrating the Self. He was not eating, and hardly anyone
knew who he was. For years he sat like this. He was not trying to achieve
something, or trying to deepen his experience or understanding. He was
simply celebrating his freedom by becoming fully absorbed in it.

Question: So if no one had taken the trouble to take him out of that
underground cellar he was in, he might have spent the rest of his life there?

Papaji: He was discovered and carried out. He had a destiny to teach, so

someone had to find him and bring him out for the world. He was so reluctant
to play that role, he tried to run away a few times, but eventually he realised
that it was his fate, settled down, and an ashram grew up around him.

Question: [new questioner] Can one lose the benefits one gets from
meditation, the progress one makes, or do the benefits slowly accumulate,
even when it appears as if meditation is not going well?
Papaji: If you are following some form of meditation, you have a goal. If
that goal is not attained, you have not lost something, you have simply not
attained your goal. If you die without accomplishing your goal, you will carry
on in a subsequent birth, and you will keep going until your work is
complete. If you have this strong desire for the Self, and if you have
meditated hard to achieve it, then your next birth will be in very favourable
circumstances. You will choose a womb and circumstances that are
favourable for your progress. Freedom is not the work of one life. This is
why I say sometimes that the desire for freedom does not arise except in very
rare circumstances. That desire is the result of millions of lives. It is not a
random and uncaused whim that has just appeared in your mind. Millions of
lives have brought you to the point where you have a desire for freedom, and
not just sensual enjoyments.
All beings are addicted to sense enjoyments. Some of them call
themselves ‘religious’ people because they are devoting themselves to God,
but if you examine their beliefs and practices, you will find that they are
doing their rituals and meditations so that they can enjoy themselves in
heaven. They are so addicted to sense enjoyments, they are working hard to
attain an eternal guaranteed supply of them.
Other ‘religious’ people end up studying the scriptures and mastering
their contents. Their pleasure is the enjoyment of knowledge. I have seen and
met many people who are like this. They can give you a good explanation of
any line of scripture that you can quote, but the desire for freedom is not in
their minds. I have some friends in the south who are like this. Some
devotion may be there, but the desire for freedom is absent. It arises in very,
very few people.

Question: So these people are not candidates even for videhamukti?

Papaji: No, because that desire for freedom is not there. Without that desire,
it cannot happen. A few people have that desire, but it is mostly a weak
desire. They are not serious enough, sincere enough or honest enough to
focus exclusively on that desire. They make a little progress, then succumb to
some desire, get distracted, and revert to their old state. This happens again
and again. A few steps forward are followed by a few steps back, steps that
put you back into the traps of the mind. Many lives can come and go like this
without any real progress being made.
Even those who have been very decisive, who have moved towards their
goal without getting distracted, can falter when they near the end of their
journey. Mind will still be there, and there will be a strong desire to continue
to use the mind. These people will come face to face with the Self, but the
mind will still be there, evaluating and planning. They will think,
unconsciously, ‘I have come this far by my effort, and now I have to use this
same mind that brought me here to understand what is happening, and to
decide what I have to do next’. This will cause them to falter and keep them
away from their goal, and as they fail to reach that goal, that same mind will
become busier, trying to work out why it is not getting what it wants. It will
be a very rare person who can drop the evaluating mind and merge into that
nothingness, without thinking about it in any way.
You have to be serious, and you have to want freedom to the exclusion of
everything else. It is just a joke if you think ‘I want freedom’, and then go
back to all your old habits, or think that you can attain it by meditating for
half an hour a day. Many people come here and say ‘I want freedom’, but
they cannot keep their attention on this goal for any length of time. You walk
down a road, determined to go somewhere, but on the way you see a dance
performance by the side of the road and stop to watch it. Within a few
minutes you have forgotten the purpose of your journey. This is how it is
with most people who say ‘I want freedom’. The determination to focus on
the goal and not be distracted is not there. Mind is very tricky. It can fool you
at any step of the journey. It can distract you when you have decided to work
for freedom, and when you come close to that meeting with your own Self, it
can trick you into believing that you are hallucinating and make you believe
that what you are seeing or experiencing is not worthwhile.
When you come to that meeting with your own Self, the mind will not
only succeed in persuading you that what you are doing is wrong, it will try
to make you head off in a different direction, one that will just get you lost in
some mental labyrinth. It might create a vision of your favourite deity for
you, one that you will fall in love with, and by doing so it will keep your
attention away from the formless Self. The mind knows what will seduce
you, and if you get close to freedom, it will use its tremendous power of
manifestation to create something that will cheat you and keep you away
from the Self.
This is the mind. Everything that you see is this mind. All manifestation,
all the past, the present and the future, all the gods, the heavens and the hells
– all these things are mind. What a power this mind has! It will pretend to
help you by giving you visions or pleasurable inner states, but it will do
everything in its power to keep you away from that thought-free encounter
with your own Self. When there are no thoughts, mind has no power to divert
you. When thoughts are there, you will inevitably get tricked by them. You
think that you are running and controlling your mind, that you are directing it
for your own benefit, but the truth is, the mind is running you. Mind is a
dangerous tiger, full of lethal power. You have to learn to ride this tiger, this
immense power, without getting destroyed by it.
You need a strong determination to succeed, and when that determination
is there, blessings will come that will keep you on the right path, focused on
your goal. If you are serious, help will come.
A few years ago I met a man in Rudraprayag whose seriousness of
purpose brought him the help he needed. For me, this story started at
Lucknow railway station where I had gone to get on a train to South India. In
those days there was only one particular carriage, attached to another train,
that would take you to Madras direct. I had bought my ticket, but the Madras
carriage had not been attached to the train, and no one at the station knew
where it was. I abandoned my trip to the south and bought a ticket for
Rishikesh instead. When I reached Rishikesh, I bought a bus ticket for
Rudraprayag, which was a twelve-hour bus ride away. Pilgrims take this road
to get to some of the high Himalayan pilgrimage destinations, but this was
the middle of winter. Rock avalanches and snow blocked all the roads to the
high-altitude destinations, and Rudraprayag was about as far as the bus could
go. Why did I go there? I have no idea. I had no business there, and I was
completely ill-equipped to deal with the cold winter weather. Rudraprayag is
over 6,000 feet above sea level and it is not a pleasant place to be in mid-
winter if one is not properly equipped. I had packed my bag with clothes that
would be suitable for the warmth of South India, but something made me get
on that bus even though I knew I would be in for a long, cold ride.
As soon as I got off the bus I went into a nearby restaurant to get
something to eat. One man, who appeared to be very well dressed, followed
me in and asked if he could speak to me. Because of the speed with which he
had latched onto me, I assumed he must have been an agent for some local
hotel, or some other local place that wanted my business. In winter not many
people go to these hill towns, and there is strong competition for the custom
of anyone who shows up.
I said, ‘Let me eat. I am very hungry. I have just spent twelve hours on a
bus with no food. Please wait.’
He went outside and waited for me there until I had finished eating.
As I walked out of the door he said, ‘I apologise for bothering you before
you had even had a chance to eat, but I felt a strong urge to come up to you
and speak to you. Let’s go down to the bank of the river and talk there. It’s a
very nice place to sit and talk.’
Rudraprayag is where two rivers, the Mandakini and the Alaknanda meet,
and the river bank really is a very nice place to sit, even in winter. I followed
him down to the river, wondering what his business might be.
‘I am an engineer from Pune,’ he began, ‘from the Military Engineering
Service. I had a Guru who passed away last year and before he died he told
me that I would be enlightened in this very life. I am not enlightened, but I
know that my Guruji loved me and that he would not lie to me. This promise
has been bothering me for some time, but what could I do about it?
‘Twenty days ago he appeared to me in a vision and said, “Go to
Badrinath”. What was I to make of an instruction like this? The road to
Badrinath is closed and it will not be open for at least a month. The temple
there is not open. Even if I managed to get there on foot, what would I do
when I got there? There is nothing happening there at this time of year. At
first I thought that this might be some sort of self-induced vision, a product of
my desire to see my Guru’s form again. Also, the instruction my Guru gave
me was very odd because he himself never went on a pilgrimage in his whole
life, nor did he recommend that anyone else go on one. At first I thought,
“This is such a ridiculous thing for my Guru to tell me to do, it must be some
sort of mental trick”.
‘But then I thought, “This man is my Guru and he may be trying to help
me”. I took twenty days’ leave and arrived here this morning. Because of my
engineering background, I spoke to the government engineers, the ones who
maintain all the mountain roads here, and I was allowed to stay in the
government rest house. They told me that a bulldozer is working on the road
to Badrinath and that it will not be possible to go anywhere for at least two
days. When I saw you arrive, something inside me said, “This is the reason
why you have come here. This man is the person you have to see.”’
You see how these things happen? I was diverted from a trip to South
India by a missing carriage and ended up in a restaurant talking to a man who
had been sent there by his Guru.
I was curious to know why, out of all the people who were available to
him in the town, he had picked me.
‘There are many sadhus here,’ I said, ‘people who look as if they might
be able to help you in your quest for Self-realisation. Why did you
immediately walk up to me, a visitor in ordinary clothes, and tell me this
story?’
‘Yes, there are many spiritual-looking people here. This place is famous.
Adi-Shankaracharya wrote Vivekachudamani near here, and there are still
many scholars and sadhus in the neighbourhood. I have seen many of these
people in the last few hours, just walking around, but no one attracted me the
way that you did.’
I persisted: ‘But what did you see that made you take that decision?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied, ‘but I think it is the grace of my Guru and the
grace of all the mahatmas of the past and present that brought me to this
place and made me approach you. Other than that, I don’t know. I can’t give
you a sensible, rational reason. I have told you what my Guru promised me
while he was alive, and I have told you that he sent me on this strange
pilgrimage. I believe that he sent me here to fulfil his promise. I also believe
that my Guru is still guiding me, even though he is no longer in the body, and
I further believe that he has sent me here to meet you today.’
This man was still quite young, maybe about thirty-five, but he had a
strong drive for freedom, and that drive had made him undertake this strange
journey. We sat together by the side of the river, mostly in silence, for about
an hour, and in that meeting he saw for the first time the Self that his Guru
had promised him he would see.
He invited me to stay with him since his accommodation was warmer and
better equipped than mine, but I turned down his invitation.
‘Thank you, but “No”,’ I said. ‘I will go back to Rishikesh. I now know
why I came here. My business is finished. I can go home.’
How does something like this happen? It was not a random meeting.
Some power scheduled that meeting and brought us together in that strange
place because that man had a strong drive to attain the goal that his Guru had
told him he would attain. Help is available everywhere. If you are honest in
your search, how can the Self not give you the proper guidance that you
need? But if you are not honest, you will be led astray. You will be fooled
and cheated. But don’t be too upset if you get fooled and cheated because that
is also just what you need.

Question: [new questioner] This story prompts a question: ‘Is it necessary to

be continuously with a physical Guru?’

Papaji: If you don’t understand the language of silence that the Guru in your
Heart is speaking to you, then go to a Guru who speaks your own language.
He will tell you, ‘I am within you as your own Self’. If you can’t understand
this message and experience it for yourself in the Heart, then you have to find
an external Guru who can give you this important message and then reveal to
you the truth of what he is saying. The true Guru is always within you, but
most people need to have an external Guru who can reveal this to them. In
truth, there is no ‘within’ and ‘without’. That is just your imagination. The
true Guru is within, abiding in silence and speaking the language of no-
words. Try to understand this language, but if you can’t, find someone who
translates that silence into words, words which will point you back to the
silence where no words are spoken. This is all there is to the Guru-disciple
relationship. If you can’t discern the inner Guru, it will appear to you in a
form you can see, and it will speak to you in a language that you can
understand, saying, ‘I am within you as your own Self’.
The true Guru never leaves you. Wherever you are, he is within you as
your own Self. When I left Ramana Maharshi in 1947, I was not ‘leaving my
Master’ because I knew that he would be with me wherever I went.
There had been a lot of trouble in the Punjab, and most of my family were
still living there. Since I had not been reading any newspapers, I didn’t even
know what was going on there.
One of the devotees told the Maharshi that my family was stuck on the
wrong side of the new international boundary between Pakistan and India,
and when he heard this the Maharshi advised me to go home and look after
them.
I didn’t want to go because I had completely fallen in love with the
Maharshi. I felt that I couldn’t live without seeing his form.
We were walking on the hill together while this conversation was taking
place.
‘Sir,’ I said, ‘before I came to meet you I had a wife, children, brothers,
sisters and parents. Now that I have met you, all these people have become a
dream. I am not attached to anyone any more, except you.’
The Maharshi replied by saying, ‘If you want to call it a dream, why are
you afraid of it? If you can see that it is a dream, then you can transact your
dream business with these dream people.’
I could see the logic of what he was saying but I didn’t want to leave
because I had become infatuated by his form and presence.
‘I am completely attached to your form,’ I said. ‘That’s the only
relationship I have left. I am so physically attached to you, I cannot leave,
even for a few hours. When the doors of your hall are open, I am inside,
staring at you. When they are closed, I am camped outside your window,
hoping to catch a glimpse of you. During the night I sleep on your front
veranda because I can’t bear to be any further away from you. I am absent for
about one hour a day, eating or in the bathroom. The rest of the time I am
here with you. How can I leave?’
He looked at me and said, ‘I am with you wherever you are’. These are
the words I remember him saying. I immediately understood what he was
saying. The ‘I am’ that the Maharshi spoke of, referring to himself, was my
own Self as well, so how could I ever be away from it?
I could not argue any more. I prostrated before him, walked around him
three times, prostrated again, collected some of the dust from under his feet
and put it in my pocket. I went back to my home town, picked up my family
and took them all to the safety of India on the last train that left Pakistan.
After that I never had a chance to go back to Ramanasramam because my
family were destitute refugees. I had to support them all by working here in
Lucknow. I didn’t need to go back because I understood that ‘I am with you
wherever you are’ means that my Master is always inside me, as my own
Self.

Question: I have just one simple question. Why did you pick up the dust
from under the Maharshi’s feet?

Papaji: Gratitude. It was an expression of my absolute, unconditional

gratitude.
 Glossary

ananda bliss; the bliss that is a consequence of experiencing the Self.

baba a sadhu, particularly those in North India.
bhakta a devotee.
bhakti devotion to God.
Brahman the impersonal absolute reality of Hinduism.
Brahma the Hindu god of creation.
darshan to see or be seen by a Guru or God.
dharma there are several shades of meaning that depend on the
context. It may mean right action, moral duty, divine law, or
religious tradition.
ghats bathing places adjoining sacred rivers or tanks. They usually
take the form of paved stone steps that lead down to the
water.
gunas see sattvic.
Guru Purnima an annual festival, usually in July, that celebrates or
commemorates the Guru.
japa the repetition of God’s name or of any other combination of
sacred words or syllables.
jiva the soul; the individual self.
jivanmukta a liberated being; sometimes this term implies someone has
realised the Self while still alive, rather than someone who
attains liberation at the moment of death.
jivanmukti the state of the jivanmukta.
jnana true knowledge; direct knowledge of the reality that is the
Self.
jnani one who has a direct awareness of himself as jnana; an
enlightened being.
Kohinoor a large diamond that spent several centuries of its celebrated
life in India. It is now part of the crown jewels in London.
kundalini psychic or spiritual energy that moves in a subtle channel
 that begins at the base of the spine and rises to the sahasrara,
a centre in the subtle body that is located just above the top
of the head.
kosas usually translated as ‘sheaths’, these are the five entities or
bodies that the ego functions through according to some
schools of Indian philosophy.
mahatmas great souls, great beings.
math a Hindu institution, usually dedicated to the memory of a
famous saint. It is sometimes spelt ‘mutt’.
maya illusion; the power that makes the unreal world appear to be
real.
moksha liberation; more specifically, liberation from the cycle of
birth and death.
pranayama breath control; yogic breathing exercises.
prarabdha one of the three subdivisions of karma; the destined acts that
one has to perform in one’s life as a result of actions and
reactions pending from previous lives.
puja ritual worship of a Hindu deity.
punyas spiritual merits earned from previous actions, usually
performed in previous lives. A good store of punyas
produces favourable circumstances for one’s life, whereas
the opposite, a large amount of papams, leads to an
unpleasant existence.
rishi a seer or sage.
sadhana spiritual practice; the means by which a spiritual goal is
attained.
sadhu a Hindu who has renounced the world in order to seek
enlightenment, or some other spiritual goal.
sahaja natural; the sahaja state is the state of enlightenment in
which one can engage in the world in a normal and natural
way.
sahasrara see kundalini.
samadhi a state of trance-like absorption in which one is aware of the
Self, but unaware of the world or one’s body; the grave of a
 saint.
samsara the continuous round of birth and death to which the jiva is
subjected until it attains liberation; also, more generally,
worldly life.
samskaras tendencies or habits of the mind, particularly those that one
has inherited from a previous life.
sanga association; satsang is association with the Self.
sannyasin a member of the fourth Hindu asrama or stage of life; a
Hindu who has renounced the world to live as a celibate
monk in order to attain liberation.
satsang ‘association with sat’; sat is usually defined as ‘truth’ or
‘reality’. It is the permanent unchanging being that is the
substratum of all beings and all manifestation. Satsang is
either association with someone who has become one with
sat, or association with one’s own inner sat.
sattvic the adjective from sattva, which means purity, or harmony.
The three gunas, sattva (purity) rajas (activity) and tamas
(sloth) are, according to many Indian schools of thought, the
fundamental and ever-changing qualities of both the mind
and manifestation.
siddhis supernatural powers, particularly those that have come as a
result of yogic exercises.
tapas arduous spiritual practice, often involving bodily
mortification. Its aim is to burn off spiritual impurities.
turiya the fourth state; the underling substratum in which the three
states of waking, dreaming and sleep alternate.
turiyatita beyond the fourth; see turiya.
vasanas mental tendencies or habits; the latent urges and desires of
the mind that compel one to behave in a particular way.
Vedas the primary and oldest scriptures of Hinduism.
videhamukta one who is liberated at the moment of death.
videhamukti the state of being liberated at the moment of physical death.
yagna a vedic rite; a sacrificial offering.
Yama the Hindu god of death.