Q: Isn’t there the danger of boredom? My mind does not like being bored.
Keep it busy with Mantra. All the time in every moment. Every time the mind says ‘I am a little bit bored’ Mantra. Mantra and observe what happens, that will be good for mind. Mantra and see what happens. Mantra through every single experience, in every single moment. Every time that you are thinking and not doing Mantra, Mantra. You Mantra through the experience without separating yourself because the Mantra and you are one. You are one with your Selfless Self, you are inviting the attention of the invisible listener. Something comes into your experience and you may separate, because you are not one with the Mantra. Notice that you are not one with the Mantra, become one with the Mantra and Mantra through the experience. Then you are not separating yourself, there is no perceived separation because you are one with the Mantra. No experiencer is formed because mind is busy with Mantra.
Everything that appears is transient, except your Selfless Self that is witnessing all of these transient things. Don’t give yourself away. Like the game show ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ what is behind door number two, or staying with your Selfless Self. What is behind door number three, or staying with your Selfless Self. In the show they give someone a thousand dollars and ask ‘Are you willing to risk this thousand dollars for what is behind door number two?’. The decision is made in that moment. Are you willing to give away your Selfless Self the fountain of happiness, the all that is there, the only constant, the Reality, for what is behind door number two?
Once you know yourself in a real sense without concepts, ideas or beliefs, then all of this is the magic show. You went back stage and you saw that ‘my family’ is a body factory, each mom and dad having another body and another body, and you are identifying with a body in that moment and believing that body to be ‘me’. Creating a new person who is relying on this mind, giving power to this mind, to tell you how the past, present and future is going to be. This mind is happy to step up and guess your life. Here you are your Selfless Self where everything is arising from, you give all the power to this guy over here that you label mind, putting all your faith and trust into this mind, that is basically guessing your life. Sometimes it works the way he says it is going to and sometimes it doesn’t, but he always has an excuse as to why it is not working the way he says it is. The reality is if you stay with your Selfless Self without the desire to know, then this same mind is seen as a useless thing. You can plan ‘ok, next Thursday I am going to this event. I am going to buy tickets for this event.’ But you are not planning like ‘How is the event going to be? Is it going to be cold in the theater? Are the seats good seats?’ You are not doing any of that. You are simply saying ‘I am going to see an event next Thursday, and I need to buy tickets.’ Whereas mind will play that scene whatever it is you are going to go see, over and over, comparing this performance to past performances, judging the quality of the performance on Thursday unseen based on previously registered experiences. You just don’t need this. You just don’t need this at all and Mantra, when you are one with your Selfless Self through Mantra, you will absolutely see this. Mantra is the gate to go behind the scenes to all of the magic shows that used to totally mesmerize you and allow you to see they were absolutely an illusion. They could not be anything else, because there never was anything else.
When you are one with your Selfless Self through Mantra there can not be anyone else, because you are one, one with your Selfless Self. No other arises. You will see this and start living your life without this idea of ‘you’. Then you won’t even think it is a life. Like Maharaj told about Bhausaheb Maharaj, clapping, clapping, clapping, dropped the body. Was he fearing death? Did he think ‘oh my God I am dying’? He did not even know. One minute it is this experience, the appearance of something went back to nothing. It arose from nothing and appeared as something, and went back to nothing, with no ideas or beliefs about itself. It just was. When the dreamer awakes where did all the dream people go? Maharaj gives this pointer all the time. You as the dreamer, if you were able to dream the same dream every night and all of the people were growing up having children that were going to school. Just before you woke up, “Jim” was going off to college to become a doctor, and you wake up. Never to have that dream again. Where did all those dream people go? Did Jim ever get to be a doctor? Was it fair that Jim did not get to fulfill his purpose of being a doctor? And what about all of the people that where rooting for Jim to become a doctor? When you woke up were they sad or happy? Were they missed by their loved ones? Was Jim’s life a failure because he never became a doctor? Before the dream ended. And was it really Jim that was putting forth the effort studying to get good grades and get into a good college? Was it Jim’s good upbringing that gave him the drive to give 100%. This something appearing in the nothing is a long dream.
There is a no-knowingness. It is not a forgetfulness, it is a total disassociation with the body, and an absolute knowing of yourself in a real sense. A formless sense, this sense of Presence. As Maharaj says “You compare yourself with sky, not body.” Body may be going through something, knowingness arises of formless ‘sky’ sky is not affected by this. This is seen through Mantra. Slowly, Silently, Permanently all of the concepts, these sticky concepts are erased. Then you exist without a desire to label that existence as something. As soon as a label is placed on existence, ‘I exist’, “I exist as what?’ The belief of body, this body has a family, and the tree of concepts grows and branches out. All needs all requirements came along with the body, and all sticky concepts stick to this body idea. You can use the body for all the activities. Remaining unconcerned. Unconcerned does not mean ‘I don’t care what is going on’. Unconcerned means there is no form being created, that is in this, that has a stake in this, that could possibly be concerned. It could be compared with playing poker with someone else’s money, who is not going to ask to be payed back. You are going to thoroughly enjoy your game, you will probably make bets that you would not have made before, a little more high stakes and risk. You just have this game and you are there to play. No win, no loss, no worry.
Nothing is there. You know this. You know that all of the people doing all of these things are illusionary and transient like a dream. It does not mean that you are not showing compassion in the moment. There is just not the formation of a compassionate person, being compassionate. Nor is there the idea that there is some other person that is needing compassion. It is your own Self, and you know you have no control over what seems to be going on in the illusion appearing on Presence. Especially trying to sway an outcome of another body, powered by your own Selfless Self, but deeply believing itself to be that form. That is why if you were to go to someone right now and say ‘You know you are the Selfless Self’ even though that is the Selfless Self behind those eyes and ears, it is rooted in that body knowledge belief. The Selfless Self is pretending that it is that body, and will defend that idea it is holding about itself in that form because it truly believes it. The only acknowledgement is the subtle recognition in the projection. Presence to Presence.
Suffering is a mind created thing where you go over and over in your mind and you create and then tend a garden. You create a garden of suffering and you water it with more ideas and you are in the suffering as a sufferer. Suffering is an illusion. There has to be the creation of a sufferer in order for their to be the perpetuating of suffering. Someone in this suffering, and there is not. If you remain with your Selfless Self through Mantra the next time you are experiencing suffering or even if you see someone else is suffering, you will see there is no suffering. There is just action and movement with no egoistic self formed to take credit for anything. Suffering is mind created and absolutely an illusion. You must have a belief in yourself as a sufferer, creating a sufferer in order to suffer. Then you have to direct your attention to the train of thoughts through identification and form the concepts of why ‘I am suffering’. Suffering is not an emotion or a feeling. Suffering is a state of mind.
The Mantra is in a way like sending out an S.O.S., please save me from this world. The attention of the invisible listener is what this is trying to gain. That’s all that a little ‘you’ can do. Invite the attention of the invisible listener. Nisargadatta Maharaj says “Stay with the ‘I am’ the rest will happen by itself” Remain with your Selfless Self through Mantra and the rest will happen by itself. You in the form of Sri Ramakant Maharaj, gave yourself this Mantra, so that you could spontaneously be with yourself. Inviting the attention of the invisible listener, concentrating on the concentrator, remaining with the ‘I am’, and all else happens by itself, spontaneously. And it will. That must be the conviction that Maharaj gave this Mantra of a shining lineage, the Inchegiri Navnath Sampradaya. In a worldly sense that is extremely powerful. The trust the faith in the Master, not Master in body form. The same Master, the same Selfless Self that appeared in form as these lineage masters. That Sadguru who is moving in and as this form. Through the line now with Sri Ramakant Maharaj who is telling you, remain with your Selfless Self through Mantra, invite the attention of the invisible listener that you are Ultimate Truth. Listen to the bhajans, bhajans though the vibrations they create, help to shake loose the body identity, the holding on of the body. The vibration is like shattering an ice sculpture, bhajans are like that. The bhajans give such a vibration and allow you to perceive without the idea of this form encasing you, they shake up this body projection. With any vibration if you allow and intensify a vibration into this computer screen, it will crack. Similarly, this body identity this pressure of body impression is felt much less. Vibration from Mantra, vibration from bhajan absorbing the knowledge from the Master’s talks and reading the books slowly, silently and permanently is erasing body identity. This recognition in the projection will continue until there is not a you to do anything, spontaneous action arises, without an actor. The identifier has been identified and the identifier has disappeared, was found to not be there. The idea was needed as a concept for a time, just as Maharaj says, “Taking one thorn to remove another thorn and then throwing both away”. Mantra is a concept; the concept is there to invite the attention of the invisible listener that you are Ultimate Truth except your Selfless Self nothing is there.
When you are not knowing yourself, you are one with your Selfless Self and therefore there is no other. When you are one with your Selfless Self no ideas of a ‘yourself’ or ‘other’ arise. All ‘other’ is illusion it is just you. When you know, it is just you working through this body, to experience this sense of ‘otherness’ just to know yourself in a real sense, the world loses its bite. The only reason you have this body is to know yourself in a real sense. That’s it. There is no reason, no cause for creation, nothing to gain from this. This body was formed and the Selfless Self feeling existence or ‘I am’ said ‘This is me’. That’s it. Once you the Selfless Self know yourself in a real sense then you look back at the illusion that you created to know yourself and realize absolutely that is just illusion. You are here as the holder of this body which has a time limit, you are prior to the concept of time. Time is a concept appearing upon your spontaneous Presence. You are the Selfless Self which you always are and always will be whether holding a body or not, body appeared upon your spontaneous Presence. You have to tell this mind created self “I am not body, I was not body, and I am not going to remain body, body is not my identity”. Then using this instrument of mind, you begin to detach from the things that the body wants. You the Selfless Self whose attention has been invited and is focused on this mind created self erases this idea slowly, silently and permanently.
John Richards
Sadguru Shri Ramakant Maharaj Dakshina