David: Papaji, we are trying to make a film about
your teachings. How can we make a film when you say you have no teachings?
Papaji: To have any teaching is preaching. A real
teacher has no teaching, no method, no way. To know your own Self, you don’t
need any teaching. What you really are, always you are That itself. No one is
going to teach you. You have to realise who you are, here and now, in this
moment.
David: Do you regard telling people in which
direction they should look as teaching?
Papaji: People should not look in any direction.
[Laughter] Looking in a particular direction means abiding in an object, the
object you are directing your attention towards. People get lost this way. But
if they do away with all directions, if they have no concept of any direction
in their mind, then they will know what they really are. They will know that
they are That itself: That which they always are and That which they always
will be.
David: Do you regard yourself as a Guru, Papaji?
Papaji: No, not at all! [Laughter] I never declare,
‘I am a Guru’.
David: What about all these people who think they’re
your devotees and disciples? Are they your devotees?
Papaji: When there is no Guru there is no question of
any devotees. When they come to see me, I welcome them. Whosoever comes, I
welcome them. If they don’t come, I still wish them good luck. And when they
leave me I say, ‘Farewell. Be happy wherever you are.’
David: You are encouraging everyone who comes to you
to look for their own Self. Why are you doing this? What motivates you to do
this?
Papaji: My own happiness. These people are sleeping.
They are all suffering when the treasure is within them. Everybody, all the
human beings of this world, are suffering because they are trying to find peace
and happiness in objects. They are examining and experiencing objects one by
one, but this is only resulting in pain and suffering. There is no object in
the mind, no person, no thing, no concept that can return you to happiness and
peace of mind. So I just tell them, I just give them this information: ‘Don’t
look here, there, anywhere. Peace is within you and within the Heart of all
beings. So keep quiet, don’t look anywhere, don’t allow your mind to abide
anywhere, and you will see that it is peace, happiness itself. That is the fundamental
truth. Every being in the world is happiness itself.’
David: I think that most people who come to you
think that you are giving out something more than just information. I think
they feel that in your presence there is some power, some grace which enables
them to discover what you are pointing at. Do you have any comment on this?
Papaji: Definitely. I am pointing at their own Self
which is the fountain of grace, of beauty. In that place love and peace also
arise. I just point this out by saying, ‘Look within yourself for one second.
You don’t need to search, you don’t need to find. Just look within yourself and
you will see that you are peace itself.’ I just point this out. People are
asleep. It’s better to wake them up because they are dreaming. These dreams are
only mental projections, but because people take them to be real, they cause a
lot of suffering. If you see a tiger in your dream, you get afraid. If you get
attacked by a dream robber you get afraid.
Stop all the mental projections. See that the dream
is only a dream. See that it is not real. Whatever you see, it’s just a dream.
Wherever there is an object, wherever there is a seer and the seen, there is a
dream. If there are objects and a subject who sees them, there is a dream. But
if you somehow get rid of subjects and objects and of the relationship between
them, what’s left?
David: When you look at people who come to you and
tell you, ‘Papaji, I suffer,’ do you feel compassion for them, and when they
wake up, do you rejoice?
Papaji: I do feel compassion. What else is there for
me? I have compassion for all beings who are suffering and who are dreaming. I
just tell them, ‘Wake up, my dear friends. My dear children, wake up. There is
no suffering at all. It’s only a projection of your mind. It’s not real. You
are dreaming. Wake up from the dream, and all the suffering will end.’
David: I would like you to tell the story of the
Japanese professor with one lung who couldn’t stop laughing. I think that it is
a very good story about your teaching. Call you tell the whole story?
Papaji: [Papaji laughs] When he arrived I was
upstairs in my house, giving satsang to
some people there. He asked the people downstairs if I would come down and see
him because he had been told by his doctor that he should not climb stairs.
He was told, ‘Papaji is very busy right now. He is
giving satsang upstairs. If you cannot
wait, you must go up and see him.’
This man had a great desire to see me, so he
decided to climb the stairs, rather than wait for me to finish. The people
downstairs helped him, but even so, he climbed very slowly, and with great
difficulty.
When he arrived everyone in the room, including me,
was laughing. For the whole time he was there, there were no verbal teachings
given out. There was just continuous laughter. He also joined in, even though
he didn’t know why we were laughing. Then, as it was lunchtime, we all went
downstairs to eat.
During lunch he remarked, ‘I only have one lung.
The other has been surgically removed. My doctor has told me not to climb
stairs and not to laugh because these activities put too much strain on the
lung. If I laugh or climb stairs, I am supposed to take some medicine to help
my lung recover from the exertion. But here I don’t feel any need to take the
medicine. In fact, I feel as if my other lung has been replaced.’
And then he started laughing again. During all the
time he was with me, he never asked any questions. He only laughed and laughed
and laughed. It put no strain on him and he never needed to take his medicine.
Later, after he had returned to Japan, he sent one
of his students to see me. This student told me that after his professor had
arrived back in Japan he was asked, ‘What have you brought from Lucknow? What
is the teaching of Poonjaji?’
His only response was to start laughing. He laughed
and laughed and laughed. When the laughter finally subsided, he was asked
again, ‘What is the teaching of Poonjaji?’ and he replied, ‘Laughing. Laughing
and dancing.’
When a person laughs he has no mind, no thought, no
problem, no suffering.
David: So long as the laughter persists, there is no
mind.
Papaji: No mind. You try! [Laughter] Those who don’t
laugh, they have got minds. They look very serious and have many problems. They
have minds because for any problem, for any suffering, you need to have a mind.
It’s the mind that suffers, you see. So laugh away your problems. If any
problem comes, laugh it away! If you laugh, it will go away; it will run away,
it will fly away.
David: So, laughter is a response to the absence of
pain and suffering. Would you say that?
Papaji: What do you say?
David: When all the mental problems go, then
spontaneously laughter arises?
Papaji: Of course, of course, yes, yes. Only the man
who has got rid of all his problems, he alone laughs, he alone dances. As a
solution to all his problems, he only has to dance, he only has to laugh.
There was once a saint who lived on the top of a
mountain. At midnight, on a full moon night, he started laughing and laughing.
All the people of the village woke up wondering, ‘What has happened to this
monk?’
They went to the top of the hill and asked him,
‘Sir, what happened?’
The saint answered, laughing, ‘Look! Look! Look!
Look! There’s a cloud! There’s a cloud!’
Many people see clouds but who laughs at them? Only
the one who has no mind. Anything he sees will give him occasion to laugh.
Because, as he looks at it, he becomes that thing itself. The cloud is there,
the moon is behind it. If you have no mind, this sight alone can make you
laugh.
David: So, when you see the world, Papaji, you
mostly laugh at it. You think it’s all a big joke?
Papaji: [Laughter] I only joke, what else is there to
do? I don’t study any sutras,
I’ve never studied any sutras,
nor do I refer to any sutras.
I only make jokes. [More laughter]
David: Papaji, we are making this film for a foreign
television audience which probably does not know much about either you or your
teachings. Will you please tell them exactly what enlightenment is, in terms
they can understand?
Papaji: Enlightenment is for those people who have
not found any satisfaction in sensory indulgence. It is for those people who
are fed up with things, with objects, and the enjoyment of them. The desire for
freedom, for enlightenment, arises when one begins to understand that permanent
happiness cannot be found in sensory pleasures.
The objects which the five senses
record cannot give you permanent happiness. If you have a desire for something,
some object which the senses are recording, happiness will briefly arise at the
moment when your desire is fulfilled. But it is not the object itself which
gives you the happiness, it is the fulfilment of the desire for it. When the
desire is there, while there is still a wanting to achieve or get something,
there is no happiness. The desire drops only at the moment when it is
fulfilled. At that moment there are no thoughts, no desires. If you look
closely at your own experience you will discover that happiness arises
spontaneously only when there are no thoughts and no desires, and that it
disappears when thoughts and desires come back.
What can one deduce from this? The simple
conclusion is that when you are empty of thoughts and desires, happiness
arises, and when thoughts and desires are there, happiness is no longer
experienced. Happiness therefore lies in the emptiness of no thought, not in
the quest for more and more things.
Objects and the desire for them are transitory –
they come and they go. Whatever comes and goes is not permanent. If you want
permanent happiness you must understand that you can never get it through the
pursuit of things that come and go.
The emptiness of no-thought, of no desires, is
permanent. It is the source of true, permanent happiness. In fact it is
happiness itself. When you understand and fully accept this, the mind no longer
reaches out for external gratification because it understands that the very act
of reaching out causes desire and suffering to arise. When you can abide in
that emptiness, that permanent happiness, without feeling a need to search for
happiness anywhere else, you are free from desires and suffering. That freedom
is enlightenment.
Once you have established yourself in that state,
you no longer need to worry about or pursue anything in this world. The people
and things of this world will still be there, but they will not cause you any
trouble or suffering because the desire to get pleasure and happiness through
them will never arise. The emptiness, the happiness, will never be diminished
even if you lead an active, worldly life because the thoughts and desires which
formerly resulted in misery, suffering and frustration will simply not arise.
When you have a desire for freedom, when you begin
to understand that permanent happiness cannot be gained through the pursuit of
worldly pleasures, you should look for a perfect being, someone who has
permanently established himself in the state of true and permanent happiness.
Such a being, whose Heart is perfection itself, can make you aware of the
happiness and the emptiness that lie within you. He may do it by the power of
his thought, by looking at you, by touching you or simply by being quiet.
Anyone who comes into contact with such a being will be benefited by his
presence. Such a perfect being has no sense of self, no sense of being an
individual person. Though everyone who comes to him is benefited by being in
his presence, that perfect being never thinks that he is helping anyone because
he knows that there is no one who is separate or apart from him.
You all make the mistake of believing that you are
separate people, with separate minds and bodies. This idea is just a thought.
In the presence of a fully-enlightened being, this thought can disappear,
leaving behind it an awareness of who you really are. The emptiness of no-self,
of pure happiness that you experience in the presence of an enlightened being,
is the direct knowledge of Reality itself.
I never advise anyone to renounce the world. This
is not the way to get enlightenment. It has been tried both in the West and the
East for thousands of years, but it has not given any good results. My advice
is different. I simply say, ‘Keep quiet. Stay wherever you are. Don’t reject
your worldly activities. Simply keep quiet for a single second and see what
happens.’
This is a very new idea. I don’t think that it has
been given out by anyone before. Formerly, people used to do tapas for years and years in
remote places in an attempt to win enlightenment. Even kings would give up
their kingdoms, go to the forest and devote all their energies to gaining
enlightenment. But it didn’t work. Why? Because freedom, enlightenment, is not
something that can be ‘won’ or ‘gained’. It is already here and now, within you
as your own Self. You don’t have to go looking for it anywhere else. It is
concealed by the wrong ideas you have about yourself. You think, ‘This is my
body, this is my mind’. These ideas are the hindrances which stop you being
aware of your real nature. If you can remove them, you are free. You can give
up these ideas anywhere. You don’t need to go to a forest to discard them.
David: People in the West are always being given
advice from spiritual teachers. Everybody is telling them, ‘Join our group and
you will be happy. Follow our advice and you will be happy.’ What is different
about your message, and why should people believe it?
Papaji: They advise the people in order to destroy
them. I tell them to reject those teachers and preachers and come to me. I will
give you good advice. Don’t listen to anybody’s advice, not even mine. Peep
within yourself and listen to your own voice. What do you hear? Don’t listen to
any advice, because all advice belongs to the past. If someone gives you some
advice, that advice has come from something the adviser has heard, read or
experienced. So, all this advice comes from the past. You don’t need any advice
to know your own Self. Don’t listen to anybody’s advice. Just keep quiet. This
is the best advice. I tell people, ‘Keep quiet. Don’t think and don’t make any
effort just for a single second.’ This is my advice. And if you follow it, you
have done very well, not only for yourself, but for everybody, for all the
beings of the world.
David: So following any advice except the advice ‘Be
quiet’ takes one away from the Self, not towards it?
Papaji: Of course, of course, it has to because it
takes you to the past. I repeat: any advice that you can mention has come from
someone who has heard it or read it. It is all from the past. It cannot show
you what you are right now, this moment. Don’t believe any of the messages that
come to you. Don’t even believe the information that your senses are sending to
you. Ignore all advice, transcend the senses and all the information they are
giving you. Then and only then will you know what you are. You have tasted
sensual pleasures for millions of years. Now, for the first time you are
wearing a human form. Make the best of it.
Don’t listen to any advice. Advisers have not shown
good results. Advisers only teach you to fight, to quarrel with your neighbours
and all the other people who don’t belong to your church. And if you follow
their advice, some other teachers will then tell you, ‘No, don’t follow their
advice, follow my advice’. Once this happens, quarrels are inevitable.
David: You say, Papaji, that a strong desire for
freedom is required. Are any other qualifications needed?
Papaji: I don’t think that this can be called a
qualification. It rises spontaneously from within. In a few rare ones it rises
from within and dances on the bosom.
When a desire arises for a sense object, you are
happy to go out and meet that object. But freedom is neither an object nor a
subject. The desire for freedom rises from the source, plays on the source and
settles down in the same source. When it is there, it plays with itself, enjoys
for some time, and then settles down. The rising and falling is never a
problem, because it is always the same, whether it rises or not.
When people say, ‘The desire for freedom rises and
subsides,’ what they are saying is that for the rest of the time other desires
rise and fall. Also, when you say, ‘The desire for freedom has arisen in me,’
you are implying that there was a time when the desire was not there. I myself
never felt the desire for freedom rise because it was always there. Right from
childhood it was there.
David: Do we need to have faith in anything, Papaji?
Do we need to believe in the teacher’s words? Do we need to believe we can get
freedom? Do we have to have faith in something?
Papaji: Yes, of course you need faith. Faith in your
own Self. Faith that ‘I am free’. If you want to have faith in something, this is
the best faith you can have. ‘I am already free.’ You are now believing, ‘I am
suffering, I am bound’. Why not instead change it to the best faith, that ‘I am
free’? What difference does it make?
David: If one has the absolute conviction ‘I am
free,’ then the conviction becomes experience. Is that what you are saying?
Papaji: No, not ‘experience’. Freedom is not an
experience. Experiences are always with something else. The desire for freedom
will finally vanish, leaving freedom itself. When freedom knows itself, it
alone will remain. Right now, you are busy with other desires. When they have
all left you, it, freedom, will remain and reveal itself to you.
David: Papaji, you say that enlightenment is a very
easy thing to discover and yet I have heard you say many times that the number
of people who have fully woken up to their own Self can be counted on one’s
fingers. If it is so easy, why do so few succeed?
Papaji: It is so easy because you don’t have to work
for it. It is so easy because you don’t have to go anywhere to get it. All you
have to do is keep quiet. Attaining freedom is therefore a very easy thing.
People say that it is difficult only because their minds are always engaged
with something else. Freedom itself is not difficult. It is giving up the
attachment to other things that is difficult. Disengaging yourself from
attachments may be difficult. You have to make a decision to do it. You can
decide now or put it off till your next life.
David: Is it necessary to have a Master who is
himself realised to succeed?
Papaji: Absolutely! Absolutely! Otherwise how can you
know whether you are on the right track?
David: Many people in the West, Papaji, have spent a
lot of time looking for a realised Master. How can they find one? What advice
would you give them on how to find one?
Papaji: They cannot find. They cannot find. A true
Master cannot be seen with the eyes. If people try to find out through their
senses, they will not make a correct judgement because the Master is beyond the
senses and beyond any judgement.
When you want to be free, freedom
itself is already there. But you have not acquired the habit of depending on
freedom; you don’t know the language of freedom, the language of emptiness, the
language of love. You don’t understand these things because you have sold
yourself to others’ objects.
So, you don’t understand what this freedom really
is, but still you have an intense desire for it. When this happens, freedom,
out of compassion, takes a physical form to speak to you in your own tongue so
that you can understand what freedom really is.
Then it teaches you, ‘I am your own Self’. It
enters your own Self and becomes one with it. This is the role of the teacher,
to point out to you, ‘I am your own Self. I am That itself.’ This is the role
of the teacher. For sometime it becomes a teacher just to apprise you of the
fact that you are That. You don’t listen to the impersonal That which is always
within you. Therefore He becomes a teacher. That becomes a teacher in order to
tell you, ‘You are That itself’. When you understand this, you see that you and
the teacher are one.
David: Papaji, Ramana Maharshi also said that one
cannot see who is and who is not a true Master, but he did say that there were
two signs that one should look for. One should check whether or not one feels
peace in his presence, and one should look to see whether he deals equally with
all the beings around him. Do you agree that these are useful indications?
Papaji: Of course I agree. You can easily be misled
by the talks that a teacher gives, by the statements that he makes. But if you
feel your mind is quiet near him, and if you feel some kind of happiness and
peace around him – these can be the outer symptoms of a teacher. Not everyone
can feel this peace. Only those people who are intensely devoted to freedom,
they alone can sense it, not others.
So, when you go to a teacher, just keep quiet. You
need not give any question. Don’t expect any answers from him.
Sit quietly, and feel if your mind is quiet or not.
If it is quiet, then you can conclude that this is the man who can teach you,
that this is the man who is worth staying near.
David: Papaji, you are advising people to sit in satsang with a realised Master and
to keep quiet. When the Master dies and physical satsang is
no longer possible, what should the disciple do next?
Papaji: If he’s a true disciple, he will not agree
that the Master ever dies. The body dies, but the Master is not the body. All
bodies will die, but the Master was never a body. So the death of the body doesn’t
matter for the disciple because he knows that the Master is something else. The
Master is always seated within the Heart of a disciple. The disciple who knows
this doesn’t need anything else. He knows perfectly well, ‘I don’t miss my
Master. My Master is here and now, always within me.’ This is the relationship
between the Master and the disciple.
David: If the disciple has that attitude, then
realisation is possible after the Master’s death?
Papaji: If the disciple … ?
David: If the disciple has this attitude, ‘My Guru
was not the body which died, he is my own Self,’ then with that attitude he
call still realise the Self. He need not look for any other physical teacher.
Papaji: The teacher is the one who takes away the
body and mind of the disciple. If he has not done or cannot do this, he cannot
be accepted as a real teacher. In order to look for another teacher, you need a
mind and a body, don’t you? If you haven’t got a mind or a body any more, where
will you look? How will you look?
David: Papaji, can you please describe your own
enlightenment and in particular the role which your own Master, Ramana
Maharshi, played in it?
Papaji: It’s a long story.
David: Will you tell a short version?
Papaji: It’s a long story. To tell it all I would
have to begin from childhood. However, I can start at the point where I went to
see Ramana Maharshi. I entered his ashram and all was quiet, all was quiet.
This man was quietness itself, an incarnation of silence. He was not speaking
to anyone. There was a tremendous silence there. I never saw anybody so silent.
The people who went to see him, their minds didn’t enter the hall where he
lived. He just sat quietly and silence was there.
He would tell people, ‘Keep
quiet, keep quiet,’ but most people didn’t understand the import of what he was
trying to say. Even today people still don’t understand what he was trying to
say.
He would talk about many things: how to be free,
how to get enlightened, and sometimes he would say things like, ‘You need
grace’. But most of the time he said in Tamil, ‘Summa iru,’
which means, ‘Keep quiet’. Most people did not understand the true meaning of
this, but I grasped it immediately. Nowadays I use this phrase a lot because I
agree with my Master that the best teaching is, ‘Keep quiet’.
If a man who is quietness itself tells you to keep
quiet, then that phrase comes from authority and has authority. It works
immediately. If an ordinary man tells you to keep quiet, it will not work, but
if a man who is silence itself tells you, then, automatically, you become
quiet.
David: Can you describe what happened on the day you
finally got it? How did it happen?
Papaji: I had been a devotee of Krishna from
childhood. So much so that Krishna even would manifest in front of me in a
physical form. I could register him with all my senses in the same way that I
could see ordinary things.
I had been spending about four days in
Adi-annamalai on the other side of the mountain.
On my return the Maharshi asked me, ‘Where have you
been?’
I replied, ‘On the other side of the mountain,
staying by myself and playing with Krishna’.
‘Oh, very good, you have been playing with
Krishna!’ he exclaimed.
‘Yes sir, I have been playing with Krishna. He is
my friend.’
‘Do you see him now?’
‘No sir, I don’t.’
Then he said, ‘What appears and disappears is not
real. The seer remained. You saw him, he disappeared. He remained, the same
seer. Now you are here also, the seer remained. Now, find out who the seer is.’
This ‘seer’ was just a word, but it struck me with
such an impact that I became the seer. I became the seer.
Nowadays, when I give satsangs, I tell people, ‘Don’t hold on
to the word. Go to the root of the word. Go to that which the word is
describing or indicating. If you do this, instantly you will get true understanding.’
When you say the word ‘freedom’, for example, go
immediately to freedom and stay there. When someone says, ‘Let us go to lunch,’
food is being spoken about, and you suddenly become one with the food. Why
can’t you do this when I say the word ‘freedom’?
When we speak of freedom, we must be one with the
freedom, we must smell freedom, enjoy freedom. But this doesn’t happen. With
other things the word takes you to the right place, but when I say the word
‘freedom’, you don’t go to the right place to understand it. For the word
‘freedom’ we need so many satsangs,
so many teachers, but still we don’t catch the real meaning. What’s wrong? We
are tied to somewhere else.
David: Papaji, many people in the West have
experimented with different meditation techniques. Some of them have meditated
very intensively for many years. I have heard you say several times that
practising like this will not bring about enlightenment. Could you please
explain why you think this is so?
Papaji: First of all, meditation is just to fatigue
your body and your mind so that you will get fed up with it. Then the idea can
occur to you: ‘Maybe there is something else.’ With this thought you may go off
in search of a real teacher. If you find one, he will not tell you to meditate,
he will not give you some method. He will simply say, ‘Keep quiet’. He will not
tell you to do anything or to stop doing anything. Lectures on what you should
do or not do come from preachers, not from teachers. The true teacher has no
teaching, no do’s and no don’ts. He simply tells you, ‘Keep quiet’. There can
be nothing else that a teacher can say.
This is going to work. This is the best teaching
that a teacher can give. As I was telling you before, if he says, ‘Keep quiet’,
you not merely hear the words, you actually become quietness. What is the
trouble? Why does everyone find this so difficult?
It is the same in satsang.
I tell people, ‘Enquire, investigate, ask yourself “Who am I?”‘, and they
reply, ‘We can’t do it, we can’t do it. We have tried, but it gives us trouble.
We get a lot of tension and headaches when we do it.’ Only some rare ones get
it. The others fail because their minds are otherwise engaged. I do not know
why this is so. I cannot give you any explanation as to why it suddenly works
with some people and not with others.
If you keep quiet, you will fall in love with it,
that silence and peace. Everybody needs happiness and peace, whatever they are
doing. And there can be no happiness, no peace, no love, no beauty in anything
except this silence, which is always here and now within you. Therefore I
always say that you don’t need any meditation. You need a mind to meditate, and
whenever you use your mind, the result has to be mental. You also need your
body. You are told to sit in a particular position, with hands and feet
positioned in a particular way. Physical activities give you physical results,
mental activities, mental results. But what I speak of is beyond the body,
beyond the mind. It cannot be approached through mental and physical means.
If some spiritual idea sounds good to you, and you
follow it, the result has to be intellectual. So, shun all ideas. Don’t try to
approach this silence through physical, mental or intellectual routes. Just
give up all notions, all ideas, everything you have heard and read, and you
will discover that you are emptiness itself.
David: Many people have tried to be quiet, to be
still, but they haven’t succeeded. What are they doing wrong?
Papaji: They should give up the intention to keep
quiet. If they can’t keep quiet, I would tell them, ‘Give up the intention to
keep quiet’. If they do, what will happen?
David: You frequently tell people, Papaji, to ask
themselves ‘Who am I?’ Why does this work when every other method fails?
Papaji: Because this is not a method. Other methods
are just clipping the branches, but enquiry strikes at the root, the root of
the mind. If you cut a branch, after some time it will grow again. But if you
go to the root of the mind and pull out the root, it can never come back.
Enquiry uproots the mind. When you inquire ‘Who am I?’, you strike at the root
of the mind and destroy it permanently. In fact, it would be more accurate to
say that through enquiry you discover that there is no mind at all.
‘I’ is the mind. When you ask
yourself ‘Who am I?’, ‘I’ is interrogating itself to find out what is the real
nature of mind. No one has ever asked ‘Who am I?’ No one. People are always
asking, ‘Who are you? Who is he? Who is she?’ But no one ever asks ‘Who am I?’
When you question yourself like this for the first time, you are not merely
striking at the root of the mind, you are striking at the root of all creation
because the ‘I’, the mind, is the source of all creation. When you make the
enquiry, it is not just the ‘I’ that disappears, creation itself also vanishes.
You discover that there is no creator, no creation and no beings created. This
‘Who am I?’ is such a powerful tool. It takes you to the depths of the Self,
that place where you discover that neither you nor creation ever existed.
David: Many people have asked themselves ‘Who am I?’
without getting the right answer. Mind still remained. Should they keep on
asking till they get the right answer?
Papaji: No, only once. If you do it properly, you
only need to ask once. If you do it properly, it will strike at the right
place. When you ask ‘Who am I?’ don’t expect any answer. You must get rid of
the expectation that you will get an answer. You must not do the enquiry with
the intention of getting somewhere, of getting an answer. The purpose of this
question is not to get an answer. Rather it is to merge, in the same way that a
river merges into the ocean. It doesn’t go to the ocean to remain a river, it
goes there to lose itself. In the enquiry ‘Who am I?’, there is a merging into
the divinity, into the Self, emptiness itself. Just keep quiet and see what
happens.
While doing this enquiry, one must not wait for an
answer. When the question is finished, the ‘I’ is also finished. ‘Who am I?’
What can come after this ‘I’? You become That into which the ‘I’ has
discharged. That place has to be emptiness.
David: Papaji, you frequently say, ‘Truth exalts a
holy person’. You also say that a holy person is one whose mind is spotless,
pure, immaculate. And yet at the same time you never ask anyone to make their
minds spotless, pure or immaculate. How can truth exalt us if we don’t do
anything to make our minds pure, spotless, immaculate?
Papaji: You cannot make the mind pure. Mind itself is
dust. You cannot clean dust with dust. Imagine that you have a dusty mirror
that you want to clean. You bring more dust and add it to the original layer.
This is cleaning the mind – adding dust to the dust. All your attempts to clean
the mind through meditation or yoga will fail because they will just add dust
to the dust that is already there. So what I say is, ‘Keep quiet’. If you keep
quiet you are removing the mirror itself so that no dust can alight anywhere.
This is what I mean by holiness. Truth exalts holiness, and you become holy by
removing the mirror of the mind.
If you have a mirror in front of you, your face
will be reflected in it. This reflection is a spot, an impurity. While that
spot is there you are not holy. How to remove the reflection? Simple. You throw
away the mirror. What will then happen to the reflection? It will go back to
your face. If you throw away the mind for one second, just one second, holiness
will reveal itself and you will merge back into that holiness.
Therefore I say, ‘Truth exalts a holy person’. All
the objects you see around you are reflections in the mirror of your mind. All
objects are dust. Throw away the mirror and there will be no mind, no objects
and no dust.
David: Most people, Papaji, think that enlightenment
is something which can be achieved after a long period of arduous preparation.
What is wrong with this belief?
Papaji: This is wrong from start to finish. Any
belief is wrong. Why should you believe in anything? Do you need to believe
that you are David Godman? You are very sure about it, no? Do you need to ask
someone? Do you go to Madhukar and say, ‘Please tell me where David Godman is.
He was living in this house.’
He will tell you, ‘You are David Godman, and this
is your house’. How did you lose the certain knowledge and conviction of who
you really are? You don’t embark on arduous preparations to find out who you
are if you already know who you are. You get attached to wrong ideas. Because
you believe them, you end up thinking that you have to do something to be what
you already are. You get stuck with these things and forget where your real
home is.
David: I think this is a major problem in the West,
Papaji. People will not be convinced that they are ready for realisation right
now. They all think they have to do something.
Papaji: Of course. That’s what I hear. That is why
all the yoga teachers are very successful in the West. I have seen yoga centres
even in small villages. There are about five thousand yoga teachers in Europe.
I have talked to some of them and they’re all doing very well.
I asked one of them, ‘What you are teaching?’ And
he answered, ‘How to keep young and fit up to ninety years of age’.
This is what most of them are aiming at, and if
this is what you want from yoga, it can help you to achieve it. Many books on
yoga are sold in the West – I have even seen them on stands by the side of the
road. Yoga for Sex was one – you must
have seen it.
So, the yoga that is taught in the West is to
maintain the health and vitality of the body. I remember one girl in
Dusseldorf. She was in her twenties and she looked very good and very happy. I
saw her meditating so I asked her, ‘When you meditate, what do you meditate
upon?’
She replied, ‘I want to keep young for a long time.
I am twenty-seven now and I want to be healthy till I’m eighty five.’
I gave her the name Ratna, which means ‘diamond’. I
met her boyfriend and called him Ratnasagar, which means ‘ocean of diamonds’.
They were both very good people, but they were not getting any results from
their meditation. No one gets real results from meditation.
David: I want to ask you some questions about
happiness, Papaji. I have heard you say that nobody in the whole world is
happy, they only think they are. How can you justify this?
Papaji: Because no one is happy in this world. This
is a true statement. I have not seen any such person. I have travelled all over
the world, and in each country I visited everyone I saw was suffering. Everyone
is suffering, even the richest people.
I once met a very rich man in Switzerland. I went
to see him because I had looked after his son in India. This boy had had some
mental problems, so someone suggested to him, ‘Go to Poonjaji in Rishikesh. You
will get better if you stay with him.’ This boy stayed with me for about a
year. He was a little paranoid or schizophrenic, but he became well again after
staying with me. He travelled all round India with me – Lucknow, Haridwar,
Rishikesh, Delhi and Bombay – before going back to Switzerland.
On my next trip to Europe his father invited me to
stay. He put me in a revolving flat on top of an apartment block. This man was
clearly very rich, but he could not sleep at night. First he would have a few
drinks and then three or four sleeping tablets. Even then he couldn’t sleep.
I asked him, ‘Why can’t you sleep? I’ll make you
sleep. You decide when you want to sleep and I will see that you get some.’
His trouble was that he had a car factory – 5,000
assembly-line workers plus all the administrative staff. It was a very big
complex. Throughout the night the telephones were ringing – dispatching,
selling, booking. This was the way he was. He was so busy, he couldn’t sleep.
I told him, ‘Come with me tomorrow in your car and
don’t ask me where we are going’.
The next day he said, ‘I cannot go with you because
some people here have come with some orders’.
When you always have some business in your mind –
something to be done today, tomorrow or the next day – these thoughts will be
continuously revolving in your mind. If you don’t reject them, how can you
sleep? People in the West are always working. They don’t have time to sleep.
Have you been born only to work, or are you born to be peaceful? What is
happening in the West? Work, work and more work. It costs people their health,
but still they will not rest. That is why they are not happy; that is why they
are in trouble.
They think, ‘We have got a fat balance in the bank,
a good apartment and the latest model car’. But this doesn’t help a man to be
happy. To be happy the best prescription is contentment. Whatever you have, be
contented with it. If you want to compare your wealth with other people’s, look
at the people who have less than you and be happy. Don’t look at some
billionaire sheikh and feel jealous that he has more than you. Look at people
who are worse off than you. ‘Look at that man. He is begging. Thank God I am
better off than him. I have food and I don’t need to have a begging bowl in my
hand.’ If you have this attitude, you will sleep very well.
Henry Ford, the man who started and owned Ford
Motors, was once the richest man in the world. But he couldn’t eat properly. He
once said, ‘I look at my workers when they are eating lunch. I see how much
they’re eating. I feel that I could never eat that amount of food because my
doctors have advised me to eat very little. I am only allowed to eat two ounces
of food at each meal.’
Have you come here not to eat, not to sleep? Are
you here only to earn money, money that you will leave behind you when you die?
I am not saying, ‘Don’t earn money at all’. I am simply saying, ‘Earn, work and
live well, but don’t get lost with these things’. Don’t forget that you have
come here to have peace, not to earn money.
David: Many people experience happiness as a result
of indulging in physical pleasures. Is that happiness which they experience the
same happiness which you know to be your own Self, or is it a different kind of
happiness?
Papaji: No, no. To be your own Self is the only real
happiness. If you pursue happiness anywhere else, you just fatigue yourself,
only to find out that the happiness you are striving for is not the real
happiness. If you need to repeat the process again and again to get happiness,
then what you get is not true happiness. You want to repeat the process again
and again because the experience of happiness you got each time did not fully
satisfy you. That is why you repeat it.
David: I am not talking about processes, Papaji, I’m
talking about the result. If I am suddenly very, very happy as the result of
doing something, is my happiness the same as your happiness, or is it
different?
Papaji: Happiness is one. Happiness is one. But when
you attribute it to something which is not abiding, then it is different. You
say ‘your happiness’. When you say ‘my’ happiness or ‘your’ happiness, then it
is not that happiness which I point at. I point to unattributed and unearned
happiness, not ‘my’ happiness or ‘your’ happiness. This is the only difference.
You are using ‘my’ and ‘you’. If you remove ‘you’ and ‘me’, there is no
difference.
David: What about states such as ecstasy and bliss?
Are they mind experiences or are they from the Self?
Papaji: Ecstasy is a state of mind. For some time it
will stay and then it will again dwindle and disappear. Many people get into
ecstatic states just by listening to a poem or by singing a song, or by some
other means. One can get into ecstatic states, but they go away because they
are dependent on transient circumstances. Bliss is different. It can be
compared to the dawn before sunrise. When dawn comes, you know that the sun
will soon follow. The sun is not there, but some sign of it is showing above
the horizon. So, when you feel some bliss, and you are not attributing it to
some external object, you are focusing on the dawn of the Self. To see the sun
rise, you must look to the east, not to the west, to the point where the rays
of the sun are coming from. When the bliss comes, focus on the bliss. Become
one with the bliss. When you experience That from which the bliss is emanating,
the bliss will be rejected. Bliss is also a mental state. In the end it will be
rejected.
David: Do we have to reject it consciously or will
it happen automatically?
Papaji: It will happen automatically.
David: Some people say that bliss is an obstacle to
realisation and that the final experience is peace and stillness.
Papaji: This is an idea that comes from yoga. The anandamaya kosha, the sheath of bliss,
is one of the five sheaths that limit the ‘I’. First there is the annamaya kosha, the physical sheath,
then the pranamaya kosha, the sensory or ‘vital’
sheath, then the manomaya kosha,
the mental sheath, then vijnanamaya
kosha, the intellectual sheath, and finally the anandamaya kosha, the sheath of bliss.
In the yoga system, you have to reject all these five sheaths one by one,
including the bliss. You have to remove your attachment to these things one by
one. When you have removed your attachment to the physical body, the senses,
the mind and the intellect, bliss will come. Bliss will be there when the
intellect goes. But one should not get attached to it. Most yogis get attached
to blissful states and don’t go beyond them. This is a consequence of the yogic
system which aims at getting blissful states.
Don’t get attached to this final kosha [sheath]. Don’t be satisfied
with bliss. Stay quiet and let the bliss become That. As the mind absorbs the
bliss more and more, it becomes the bliss. After some time there will be no
question of rejecting the bliss, because, from the other side, from beyond the
mind, from no-mind, freedom itself will come to receive you and embrace you. At
that stage no one can reject the bliss.
If you can feel the bliss, you have done very well.
The bliss of the Self, the Atman,
is called Atmananda. It will
take the form of Atman itself.
Though everything has gone when you reach this state, it is still not the final
state. ‘No-mind’, which is related to mind, is still alive. If you can reach
this state of no-mind, you have done very well. When you reach this stage your
work is over, because from then on, it is the task of the beyond. This beyond
is fathomless. It will take hold of you and work on you in a very beautiful
way. It will reveal itself more and more with each passing moment. It will show
you a different beauty, a different love and a different form that are so
entrancing, you will always be engaged with it. It will be engaged with it.
Even if the body leaves, you cannot get rid of it. This can be described as the
Ultimate, as ‘Ultimateness’.
David: Papaji, no-mind, dead mind and silent mind,
what are the differences?
Papaji: Silent mind means to keep quiet temporarily.
It is simply a suppression of the objects in the mind. It can happen many
times, but it will not last. Still mind is also temporary. Meditation or concentration
can result in still mind. It is like the flame of a candle. When there is no
breeze, the flame will be still. When a wind comes, the candle will flicker and
go out. Still mind will be blown away as soon as it encounters the wind of a
new thought.
As for no-mind, I am hearing this question for the
first time. No person from India or the West has ever asked me about this
before. I am very happy to deal with this question for the first time.
Before we speak about no-mind, we
have to see what mind is. Let us start from consciousness. Sometimes you want
to look in a mirror to see what you look like. In the same way, consciousness
sometimes wants to look at itself to see what it is. A wave will arise in
consciousness. It will ask itself, ‘Who am I?’ This wave that arises in
consciousness imagines itself to be separate from the ocean. This wave becomes
‘I’, the individual self. Once it has become separate, this ‘I’ degenerates
further and starts to create. First there will be space, the vast, frontierless
emptiness of infinite space. And along with space, time will be created,
because wherever there is space, there must be time. This time becomes past,
present and future, and from these three, attachments arise. All creation rises
within the past, the present and the future. This is called samsara. Samsara means
time. Samsara is endless past, present
and future. Anything which is born in time, which stays in time, will be
finished in time. And all this is mind. The ‘I’ arose and created space, then
time, then samsara. This ‘I’ has
now become mind, and this mind is ‘I’.
Then at some point, an intense desire for freedom
will arise. This desire will arise from consciousness itself. Originally there
was a descent from consciousness – from the ‘I’ to space to time to samsara. Now there will be an ascent.
As you ascend, attachment to physical objects will go, then vital, then mental,
then intellectual. Finally, you return to ‘I’ alone. This ‘I’ is still mind.
This ‘I’ has rejected everything. It exists alone
with no attachments. It cannot go back to the world of attachments, to samsara. It has a desire for freedom;
it wants to return to its original place. This ‘I’ which rose from
consciousness is now returning to consciousness. It takes the decision, ‘Become
no-mind now,’ and with that decision the ‘I’ is gone, mind is gone. The ‘I’,
which is the mind, has been rejected, but there is still something there which
is between the ‘I’ and consciousness. This in-between thing is called no-mind.
This in-between entity will merge into consciousness, and then it will become
consciousness itself.
Look at this cup [pointing at a tumbler on the
table]. There is space, emptiness, both inside and outside the cup. The space
inside we call ‘inside space’ and the space outside is called ‘outside space’.
Why? Because the name and form of the cup divides the inside from the outside.
When the name and form are removed, the space inside and the mahat, the greater space, become one.
In fact they were always one. From the point of view of the space itself, there
never was an inside or an outside. Name and form made it appear that there was
an inside and an outside, but the space was never affected by these artificial
divisions. Likewise, freedom is always there, always unaffected by names and
forms. Name-and-form is ‘I’. When the ‘I’ goes, the walls which appear to
divide consciousness are removed. This becomes This.
When you go from mind back to consciousness, you go
through this stage of no-mind. In that state there will be the feeling, the
recollection, ‘Now I have no-mind’. Gradually, slowly, this no-mind will merge
back into the beyond. But how it happens, I do not know.
David: Can no-mind become mind again? Can it come
out? Can it become manifest?
Papaji: A process has taken place. Now there is
consciousness itself. Why to speak of mind and no-mind?
In ancient times, when a king died without leaving
an heir, a royal elephant was sent out to select the new king. There was a
tradition that whoever the elephant picked up and put on his back became the
new king. One time when this happened, the elephant picked up a beggar, and
this beggar became king. Everyone was happy. The ministers saluted him, gave
him golden robes, and put him on the throne. This man who used to be a beggar
didn’t have to do anything any more. Everything was done for him. Everything
came to him without his asking. All the courtiers and ministers knew how to
attend on him. He didn’t need to beg anymore. At the appropriate time during
the day, food would be brought to him, and during the night all the queens took
care of him. Once a beggar has had a taste of being the king, will he want to
go back to his village and be a beggar again?
This is what happens when you become aware that you
are consciousness. The person is still there, the body is still there, but
there is no one who thinks, ‘I have to do this or that’. There is instead a
knowledge that consciousness takes care of everything. If you are
consciousness, the king, the five senses become the ministers who serve you.
The sense activities will go on automatically, you will not have to think about
them. If it is time for the king to have a pan [laughter], pan will come. If it
is time for coffee, coffee will come.
When you are consciousness, the brain will become
the prime minister, the sense organs will become ministers, and they will all
serve you. You will not have to think at all.
If you want this to work, you must have the
authority and power of a real king. If you behave like a king, without having
the authority, no one will listen to you. Authority must be there, and this
authority can only come by being consciousness itself.
I will tell you a good story about another king.
This king wanted to see his prime minister urgently. Since the prime minister
was not in the palace at the time, the king went to see him in his home.
On his arrival the king was told by the prime
minister’s wife, ‘He is in the puja room’.
‘Then call him,’ said the king.
‘I can’t call him,’ replied the wife. ‘I am not allowed
to disturb him while he is in his puja room.’
The prime minister, though, had heard the king
arrive.
He came out of his puja room
in his puja dress, so the king asked him,
‘What are you doing?’ The prime minister didn’t give any reply.
This made the king very angry because he saw it as
a gross act of insubordination. The king called one of his police officers and
ordered him to arrest the prime minister. The police officer stepped forward,
but before he could make the arrest, the prime minister said, ‘Wait, wait’. The
king signalled the policeman to stop and then waited for the prime minister to
give an explanation. Instead, much to everyone’s surprise, the prime minister
pointed at the king and ordered the policeman to arrest him. The policeman, of course,
didn’t move, because he had no authority to arrest the king. Then the prime
minister explained his actions to the king.
‘When you said “Arrest him,” the policeman carried
out your order because you have the authority to give such an order. But when I
said, “Arrest him,” the policeman didn’t obey because I have no authority over
you. The order was the same in each case, but the authority was different. You
had the authority. I did not.
‘I didn’t reply to you when you came in because I
was doing the gayatri mantra.
I could not tell you about this mantra because you have not been initiated into
it. I myself do not have the authority to tell you about this mantra, so I kept
quiet.’
So, if you want to have the authority of the king,
you must be consciousness itself. Then the senses will obey you. Everything
will be beautiful because all commands will come from consciousness. Kings can
make mistakes, but consciousness always makes the right decision at the right
time. When you have no-mind, you cannot do any work of your own accord. You are
simply being graced. And you are obeying. You yourself are not doing anything
because doership has gone. Mind is no more there. All the various functions of
the mind are no longer there. You will stay with the body for a stipulated
period that has already been decided, and during that time you will be an
instrument of consciousness.
Some people cannot stand the shock of freedom for
more than twenty-one days. That has been stated in the books. Imagine a man who
unexpectedly wins a billion dollars in a lottery. The shock of so much wealth
suddenly coming might kill him. He could get a heart attack and die.
It is sometimes the same with enlightenment. So
much happiness coming suddenly and unexpectedly can take away the body. But the
enlightenment will not be affected.
Some people live on after enlightenment only to
benefit other people. This benefit is not coming from some ‘person’, it is
coming directly from consciousness. The teacher, who is consciousness, knows
that it is not ‘I’ who is working. His attitude is: ‘I have been picked out to
speak, but it is not “I” who speak.’ If the teacher thinks that ‘he’ is
speaking, this is only arrogance. His words will not work.
When you have that direct experience, it’s of no
concern to you what you say. It’s not your problem if someone is benefited or
not benefited, nor if people come or don’t come. It’s all the same to you.
David: So consciousness has ordered you to teach. Is
that what you are saying?
Papaji: Consciousness … ?
David: Has ordered you to teach. Is that what you
are saying? You are just carrying out the order.
Papaji: [Long pause] Consciousness and me – we have
become so much one, I cannot say if ‘it’ can order ‘me’.
David: But some power is compelling you to give satsang, yes?
Papaji: Yes, ‘some power’ is like this: [stretches
out his hand in front of him] if I want to drink water do I say, ‘Poonjaji,
pick up the glass’? Before I put it in the mouth, do I say to my hand, ‘Put it
in the mouth’? And before I drink, do I give the order, ‘Drink’? [Papaji
laughs, picks up the tumbler and drinks.] Now, I have not commanded the hand.
It’s all me, you see. People who are benefited are not ‘others’. The hand is my
own, the stomach is my own and the requirement for water is my own. Who are the
others? Who is other than me?
Who, first of all, is ignorant? If people say so, I
don’t believe them. Who wants to be free? If someone tells me this, I don’t
believe him. Who is not already free?
So, when people come to me and say, ‘I am in trouble,
I am bound,’ I think they are joking, so I joke back, ‘You are not bound, you
are free’.
‘Does it take a long time?’ they ask.
‘No, no,’ I say. ‘You can get it now itself.’
All this is a joke, so I take it as a joke. The
statement, ‘I am a bound,’ is it not a joke? The people who speak like this
don’t show me the chains, nor the fetters, nor the prison. What kind of jail is
this? So it’s all a big joke to me, and I enjoy the joke.
David: So when you look at people in satsang, Papaji, you only see enlightened
people who are pretending not to be enlightened?
Papaji: [Long pause] Oh, it’s a difficult question,
but I have to answer it because I answer all questions. First of all, I absorb
them all and give them a seat in my Heart, in my Heart. As the lover gives a
seat to the beloved in his Heart, you are always seated in my Heart. So I open
here and say, ‘You and I, we will speak together. Yes. You are not apart from
me, you are within the Heart. You are in my Heart. Let us speak.’
David: Grace is working in satsang, Papaji. Does it
come from you, through you, or is it simply just there?
Papaji: From grace only. Grace has to come from
grace, no? A wave has to come from the ocean. Grace has to come from grace, the
ocean of grace.
David: It seems to flow very strongly in your
proximity, though.
Papaji: I don’t know.
David: Papaji, I’ve heard you say several times, ‘I
know many tricks to wake people up. If one doesn’t work, I use another.’ What
are these tricks, and how do you use them?
Papaji: One trick is, ‘Keep quiet! Keep quiet!’ The
second trick is ‘Don’t think at all’. The third trick is, ‘Don’t activate your
mind’. If these don’t work I have a fourth trick. I say, ‘Come to me and I will
teach you yoga. I will teach you how to do shirshasana [a
yogic position with the head on the floor and the feet in the air]’.
I make them stand in front of me and then I say,
‘Now, head down, feet up in the air, this is shirshasana’.
I know how to do it myself, so I can easily show them. Then, while they are
standing on their heads, they will say, ‘But I want freedom’.
While they are still in that posture I will tell
them how to gain freedom. I will say, ‘Keep quiet, keep quiet’.
At that time they will listen because by then they
will be suffering a little. When people start to have trouble through
over-indulgence in sensory pleasures, they come to me, and they listen. If
anyone is upside down for long enough, they begin to suffer, and once they
begin to be aware of their suffering, they come to me. So, I know many tricks and
I have often used them in the West.
Mostly good people are coming to
see me in Lucknow. I have no problem with them. People from all over the world
are coming to India and Lucknow for the first time, and I am very happy with
them. When I speak to them, they listen to me. They listen to me as they would
to their father, or to any other respected person who gives good advice. They
want to end their suffering, their mental pain. So I give them this trick: I
tell them to be quiet. Most people like this advice very much because I am not
asking them to do anything. They get happiness and peace by doing nothing, by
simply being quiet.
Who doesn’t want happiness? Who doesn’t want peace?
Who doesn’t want beauty? Everyone is interested. So they listen to me and I am
happy. Everyone is benefited.
They all return to their respective countries as
ambassadors from this city of Lucknow. And then they send their friends.
Thousands of people have come here simply because they have heard good reports
from other people.
No one complains about what is going on here. There
are no charges, there is no ashram, there are no big appeals for funds. I live
in my own house and I belong to this place. For fifty years I have been living
here. I have also spent a few years living abroad. I like travelling but now my
old age has compelled me to stay here. That’s why you are here. Until recently
I used to visit people in their own houses. I didn’t like to trouble anyone,
you see.
So now many people are here and I am very happy
that some message of peace is being spread. We need it very badly.
Two thousand six hundred years ago it was India
which sent messengers of peace all over the world in the persons of Mahendra
and Mitra. The Emperor Ashoka’s own son and daughter were sent out as emissaries.
Other people went to China, Japan and Korea on the same mission. There was
tremendous peace in the world at that time. So let us resolve again to send out
this message of peace, and let us send it from the same place. The Buddha
belongs to this state. I am very happy that the message of peace is being sent
out once again from the place where the Buddha lived. Many tourists now come to
this state to visit the holy places which are associated with the Buddha’s
life. They visit places like Kushinagar, Siddharthanagar and Lumbini. All of
these places have become holy because of one man who spread a message of peace
from here.
You can have peace in the world by enlightening
yourself. This enlightenment itself is a message. When you go back to your own
country you may speak, or you may keep quiet. It will work, you will see. When
your friends ask you, ‘What happened?’ you can keep quiet. Again they will ask
you. Just keep quiet, that’s all you need to do.
David: Papaji, many people have heard you say, ‘I
have not given my final teachings to anyone’. What are these final teachings,
and why you are not giving them out?
Papaji: They are not worthy of them. Nobody is worthy
to receive them. Because it has been my experience that everybody has proved
arrogant and egotistic. This has resulted in suffering. Many people are
suffering. Nowadays, I am making another trial. I will see what happens.
I don’t think that anyone is worthy to receive
them. You have to prove holiness to be worthy. Why should you trouble people
instead of helping them? This is arrogance, you see.
If a king sends a messenger to another country, his
only job is to deliver the message. I sent a messenger to the West, but he
tried to become a king. Many people have been troubled by this. I have seen it
in many cases. What to do? This kind of behaviour demonstrates unworthiness.
Perhaps I am too generous, perhaps I do not read
people properly. Maybe it is my mistake because I think that everyone is good.
Though I speak the Truth to everyone, the Truth will reject those who are not
worthy of it. Only a holy person can receive this teaching. Such a person will
be worthy of it.
If the worthiness is not there, the Truth will
enter their head and become intellectual knowledge. Westerners want
intellectual understanding. They are very happy when they understand. That’s
all the West wants: knowledge through the intellect. Everyone knows that there
is something ‘beyond’. But when I talk about it the Westerners say, ‘I don’t
understand, I don’t understand’. So I say to them, ‘You don’t need to
understand at all’.
I had a friend who lived in Paris. He had been a
follower of J. Krishnamurti for thirty-five years. He used to travel around the
world, following Krishnamurti wherever he went: Australia, New Zealand,
Switzerland, England. He had read and studied all the books.
He came to me in Saanen and I talked to him for
some time.
After he had listened he said, ‘I don’t understand,
I don’t understand’.
I told him, ‘You are not to understand this. This
is not something to be understood. You have to be it.’
He disagreed. ‘No, no. I have to understand. I
don’t understand you and I don’t understand Krishnamurti either.’
I told him, ‘You don’t need to understand either
Krishnamurti or me’.
Then he explained to me why he was having so much
trouble with Krishnamurti.
‘I am at point A and Krishnamurti is at point B.
But when I shift my perspective from A to B, he moves to point C. So, I don’t
even understand Krishnaji.’
Krishnamurti was also in Saanen at that time, so a
lot of his followers used to come and see me.
One day a man came and started talking: ‘Poonjaji
and Krishnaji are saying the same thing. Krishnaji says, “Remove all concepts
from the mind,” and Poonjaji is saying the same. They are both saying, “Unless
you empty the pot of the mind, you cannot be enlightened”.’
One man who was listening, he was a follower of
Krishnamurti, disputed this statement.
He said, ‘No, no, there is a big difference between
Poonjaji’s and Krishnaji’s teachings. Krishnaji teaches us to empty the pot,
Poonjaji teaches us to break the pot.’
That is the difference, and this is something that
cannot be understood with the mind. You can understand when the cup is full, or
when the cup is empty, but when the cup does not exist, who are you, and what
are you going to understand? So what I say is, ‘Mind itself does not exist, so
you don’t need to understand’. You have to see it and feel it when I speak.
Thinking will not help you.
Mind itself is only a notion. Get rid of this
notion. And mind is past, so get rid of the past also. Come to the present and
then I will tell you what to do next. Come to at least the present and you will
see.
David: Papaji, many people come to satsang and they have waking-up
experiences. Some of them come back weeks or months later and say, ‘I lost it’.
What is happening there?
Papaji: Again, this is unworthiness.
David: Most of the time you blame these people for
losing it. You tell them, ‘It’s your fault’.
Papaji: Yes, yes. They lost it because they did not
take good care of it. I tell these people, ‘If I give you a big diamond, you
can live off it for the rest of your life. You can sell it and get millions of
dollars for it. If, instead, you don’t recognise its worth and you give it
away, whose fault is it? If you give it to a fisherwoman who uses it to balance
her scales, because she doesn’t know what it’s worth, whose fault is it?’
This enlightenment is a diamond. It should not be
passed on to unworthy people who will misuse it. And they do misuse it. I don’t
differentiate between all the people who come to me. I tell them all the same
truth. Some get it and then they throw it away by misusing it.
They come back and say things like, ‘My girl friend
left me. I phoned her and she came back. Now I am happy again.’ Is this
freedom? Next time they will tell me, ‘I went back, but she left me again. Now
I am in trouble again.’ Every day I hear stories like this.
David: Papaji, when people leave you, you never tell
them, ‘Take care of this diamond I’ve given you. Look after it.’ You only blame
them for having lost it when they come back.
Papaji: Not all of them lose it. Some of them are
very beautiful people. They write to me and say, ‘I am keeping it. I am still
keeping this precious gift. Not only am I keeping it, I am distributing it to
others. Even after distributing it, I see that the same amount is still with
me. It doesn’t decrease. What a gift you have given me!’ Not all of them lose
it. Although I want everyone to be benefited by this thing, I also know that
not everyone can get it. Even so, the results here are very good. I look at
other ashrams and see what is going on there. Compared to them, the results we
are getting here are quite satisfactory. I am very satisfied.
David: One final question, Papaji. All your life you
have been trying to express your own inner experience. Will you please make one
more attempt for us. Who are you? What are you? What is your own experience of
your Self?
Papaji: A very easy reply is: ‘I am your own Self.’ I
am your own Self, and this is Truth. How can it be that I am myself only? I am
your own Self and the Self of all the beings that exist and that have to exist.
