Maharaj: What is it that you really want? Are you clear about it? Are you looking for God? What exactly are you looking for?
Visitor: Somehow, I have always known and felt deeply that nothing that life in this world could offer would satisfy me because it was all so transitory. What exactly do I want? Well, I want to reach reality. That is what I want.
M: (Shaking with silent laughter) If you could only realize how funny that is — "I want to reach reality." Who is this 'I' who wants to reach reality? Is it this body-complex, this psychosomatic apparatus that wants to reach reality? And is he sure that 'reality' is agreeable to accept him? Also, how will this 'I' 'reach' reality? By taking a high jump or a long jump? Or, perhaps by a rocket? Or, is it through a mental leap that this reality is to be reached? And, finally, what exactly do you mean by the 'reality' that you want to reach?
V: (Laughing) Now that you put it this way, it does seem funny, or, should I perhaps say tragic.
M: Who is it that listens to these words, whether funny or tragic?
V: Me. I, the one who is sitting here; I am listening to these words and also speaking to you.
M: The respective senses, with the aid of the Prana, the life-force, do the actual work. But is there not something — call it your sense of presence — without which none of your senses would be able to cognize anything? What is it that gives sentience to a sentient being?
V: Yes. If I were not conscious, my senses would not work.
M: Understand then, that it is this conscious presence that you are, so long as the body is there. Once your body is gone, along with the vital breath, consciousness also will leave. Only that which was prior to the appearance of this body-cum-consciousness, the Absolute, the ever-present is your true identity. That is what we all really are. That is reality. It is here and now. Where is the question of anyone reaching for it? What were you before your 'birth'? In that state were there any needs wants, desires — even the desire for reality or freedom, or liberation? In fact, that is your original, true state or true nature—a state of wholeness, of holiness, of absolute presence and relative absence. A reflection of that state
is consciousness, or I-am-ness, or being, but the reflection of sun is not the sun. This Conscious Presence is what you are, not the body which is merely the habitation for consciousness in its manifestation. When the body 'dies', consciousness is released out of the body and you are no longer even the conscious presence, because then there no longer is any relative presence. You are then in the original Absolute Awareness. Relative absence means Absolute Presence, without
consciousness of being present.
The desire for freedom, which arises in the heart of the seeker in the initial stages, gradually disappears when he realizes that he himself is what he has been seeking. The persistence of this desire implies two 'blocks'. One, it assumes the presence and continuance of an entity wanting 'freedom', whereas for a phenomenal object there can be no question of freedom because an object does not have any independent existence at all. Two, this desire is based on the desire to capture reality at the mind-level; it means trying to capture the unknown and unknowable within the parameters of the known! It cannot be done.
V: What Sadhana is done to do, then?
M: Here again, doing Sadhana means assuming the existence of a phantom. Who is to do Sadhana and for what purpose? Is it not enough to see the false as false? The entity that you think you are is false. You are the reality. Once it is understood, or rather, apperceived intuitively, that an entity is purely a conceptual notion, what remains is merely a re-integration — Yoga — in universality. Nothing remains to be done because there is no one to do it, and, more important, no one to abstain from doing it either! What remains is pure non-volitional 'being lived' because relatively we are only puppets in a dreamworld being manipulated in the original dream. It is for the individual dreamer to awaken from his personal dream. And this apperception is itself the awakening!
The young American, who had heard Maharaj with rapt attention, bowed before him and said: "Sir, your words have swept away all my mental debris. I now know what reality is. I know, I apperceive, I am the reality". ••
Translated by Ramesh S. Balsekar
Copyright © 1982 by Ramesh S. Balsekar.
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