When you know yourself in a real sense the idea of death is immediately dissolved, it just does not make sense. There is no death for the space inside a box and the space outside the box, space is space. In the destruction of the box the space does not go anywhere, there is nowhere for it to go. This perpetual no knowing where all of these states are appearing on your spontaneous Presence. Your spontaneous Presence is in that no knowingness. As Maharaj says a negative pointing to a positive “I don’t know”. It is not that ‘I don’t know anything’ as an object knowing another object using space and time through the instrument of mind and intellect. Literally there is nothing to be known as there is nothing other created and no point of reference for that sense of existence. The knower with knowingness that knows nothing, because there is nothing than it to know. There is nothing. You don’t know yourself so there is no knower that is formed to know anything. That’s the courage, literally in this body form Be with You Always and not the outside world with all of the things competing for your attention to form a knower to know those things. Things can come and go. Thoughts come and go, scenes come and go, people come and go. There is not a knower being formed to know something other.
Every moment is so very precious because you have been trained, you are using the training wheels of mind. You have been trained to believe that the world exists, and you need to do so many things to make this and that, all of these ideas and concepts. You need to un-train this, removing the training wheels through Mantra as each moment arises. Beginning with the noticing the sense of Presence, you know that sense of Presence. The knower of that Presence is formless. There is no need to take a form or any identity. You can remain as the knowingness. If there is some bad thing in your experience, you are the knower of that thing, you are not the things being experienced, you are the knower only. The knower is formless and no harm can come to the formless knower of anything in the experience. In the Bhagavad Gita it mentions that “It cannot be cut or burnt” because you are That.
When there is a situation where the mind begins to form a thinker with the thought ‘this is the end’, Mantra. It becomes a momentary blip. Mind created time, suffering is a slowing down of that time. You can suffer for a thousand years in a minute. Worry about missing a train, what is going to happen, how will I get there, OMG. Then going to someone and explaining the incident you find out all is well, they are still boarding. Yet you have missed the train hundreds of times, have felt the emotions of despair and hopelessness and fear, for that missed train, which is still boarding. Taking the form of the thinker creates a magnet for thoughts, ‘It is the end of the world’. A baby is a perfect example of not knowing formlessly. The blob of ‘I amness’ without the form of the knower. Without knowing themselves you can give them a toy and then take it away, they begin to cry, until that it replaced with another toy, and then they are happy again. Without knowing themselves there is no anchor for experience, no thinking and no thinking, or repeating the experience through the instruments of mind, ego, intellect. This is proof of the example Maharaj gives “The sage and the baby are the same”. No attachment to anything, no experience, no experiencer, attention moves effortlessly from one thing to another without the need to grasp or hold. Because there is no form taken with which a desire could be projected from. When attention goes out and the ‘me’ is formed with which desires may be projected, you forget that all of this will pass, time is created through the instrument of mind, and the world emerges over the Reality.
Presence does not know, then suddenly there is a knowing, a subtle sense, ‘I am’. You know or experience the feeling of Presence as something other. The desire to be, or the desire to continue is very strong and a natural defense is built to protect the form through which the sense of existence is felt. Remaining with your Selfless Self through Mantra invites the attention and the process of discrimination. When the invisible listener, Selfless Self, that you are, sees through this, that stranglehold on the beingness is released. There is no longer a need to perpetuate in this form as you begin to know yourself in a real sense. Strife and struggle is no more because you have released this concept, the primary concept from which all other concepts are supported. The concept that this body is all you are is released. The invisible listener sees this and burns away this egoistic attachment and in turn any attachments added through the egoistic identification are dissolved. It dawns ‘I no longer have to struggle, I no longer have to worry about dying, I no longer have to worry about or protect this form or what happens when it is no more’. Because you have seen now and begin to live from this point of seeing. When something comes up you know, like Master has said “It is just illusion”. Now the Selfless Self, that you are, through Mantra, through devotion, through remaining with yourself, through allowing things to come and go. This tension free life, this fearless life, this peaceful life, arises spontaneously. That invisible listener when the attention is pulled, releases. The desire to survive through body form is no more. Because it is clearly seen ‘I am not body, I was not body, I am not going to remain the body, body is not my identity, nothing to do with me.’ As Nisargadatta Maharaj says “There is no longer the love to be” that love to be is released. From the position of Selfless Self, the attention is invited, through Mantra, through devotion to your Selfless Self, through devotion to the Master. Until you remain in the natural state free from thoughts, as Nisargadatta Maharaj states “The highest form of worship is to remain thought free in the waking state”, until that time worshipping the Selfless Self through the form of the Master, bowing to the images of the Master, remaining in that bowing position inwardly surrendered, meditation and Mantra are absolutely necessary to invite that attention. Inviting that attention of the invisible listener that has been labeled Brahman, Atman, Paramatman, God, Master, Selfless Self, that you are. When you release the stranglehold on the beingness this desire to be, you use the body, live the life moment to moment. Moving about in the world without difficulty, totally unconcerned because that stranglehold on the beingness has been released and all is just spontaneous action. The spontaneous conviction ‘So That I’. ‘I am not body, I was not body, I am not going to remain the body. I no longer need faith, because now I know.’
Don’t intellectualize just do it. Maharaj says “There will be so many things that will try to distract you from the Reality.” Don’t follow those. Know that they are appearing just to distract you from the Reality and just to basically prove your worthiness to your Selfless Self. Are you truly earnest? Do you truly want to know yourself in a real sense? Or are you just playing? Playing is not an insult, just playing spirituality, enjoying the spiritual self. The egoistic sense of ‘I took Mantra from Maharaj, I am doing so well on this spiritual journey, I am beginning to experience enlightenment, I am a disciple of a real Master.’ That is a distraction from the Reality. Maharaj tells the visitors to the Ashram “Remember the Ashram and all these things, as soon as you go out there will be things trying to distract you from the Reality, remember Nashik Ashram and the pictures of the Master’s.” Remember the feeling evoked by Maharaj’s Presence, remember the knowledge that was conveyed. Have strong faith in your Selfless Self and have strong faith in the Master, you and the Master are one. Continue with the meditation, continue inviting the attention of the invisible listener. Maharaj says “Bhajans set the atmosphere that pleases the Spirit”. The atmosphere through Bhajans, that Bhajans create is pleasing to the Spirit. Whenever Maharaj says that something is “pleasing to the Spirit” that is probably something that you should be doing. There are no demands ‘You must do this, you must do that, you must not do this.’ all is suggestion only. You came to Maharaj because the desire arose to know your self in a real sense. You are told to help know yourself in a real sense you are to undergo meditation, Bhajan and continuous devotion which is pleasing to the Spirit.
Spirit does not desire the activities of money, publicity, sex, power. The Spirit is pleased through meditation Naam Mantra, devotion and Bhajan. Increasing the activities that are pleasing and decreasing those that are not, using discrimination and the need to know, creates the atmosphere that invites the attention of the invisible listener. When the thought of needing publicity, sex, money or power arises, right away it can be seen as being a desire arising and being presented to that egoistic sense of self. As Maharaj says “Spirit is very sensitive, what you impress is reflected immediately.” In the reflection that invisible listener that is seeing the projection through these eyes and begins to believe more deeply in the Reality and less, and less in the illusion. The more the things that are pleasing to the Spirit are impressed the more attention is invited. The conviction appears ‘I am not body, I was not body, I am not going to remain body, I am totally unconcerned’
Each moment stepping forward with this conviction. The invisible listener releases the stranglehold and the desire to be is no longer a driving force. Nirguna. The three gunas sattva, rajas and tamas. The nullification of all gunas which occurs spontaneously when the stranglehold on the beingness is released. No strife, no struggle the need to perpetuate existence in body form is dissolved. Maharaj says “Master plants the seed of Reality in your Selfless Self”. This has been done. Now it is up to you to water it, tend it, feed and nurture. You must give it the Miracle Grow of Bhajans, water it with Mantra, tend it with the knowledge given by the Master, you must keep a watch on it by remaining with your Selfless Self. It is up to you. If you don’t feed it, you don’t water it then the seed is not going to sprout and grow into the mighty tree. It will not become even a sapling without attention, it remains a seed, unfulfilled potentiality. Just a seed in a pot, easily discarded as it is seen ‘Nothing is happening, it is not growing, maybe I did not receive a good seed, maybe I am just not meant to have a plant let alone a tree.’ What a waste.
John Richards
Sadguru Shri Ramakant Maharaj Dakshina