1. Was it not the sense
of ‘I am’ that came first? Some seed consciousness must be existing
even during sleep, or swoon. On waking up the experience runs: ‘I am-the
body- in the world’. It may appear to arise in succession but in fact it
is all simultaneous, a single idea of having a body in a world. Can there
be the sense of ‘I am’ without being somebody or other?
2. Go deep into the
sense of ‘I am’ and you will find. How do you find a thing you have mislaid
or forgotten? You keep it in your mind until you recall it. The sense of
being, of ‘I am’ is the first to emerge. Ask yourself whence it comes or
just watch it quietly.
When the mind stays in
the ‘I am’, without moving, you enter a state, which cannot be verbalized,
but which can be experienced. All you need to do is to try and try
again.
After all the sense of
‘I am’ is always with you, only you have attached all kinds of things to
it- body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, possessions and so on. All these self
identifications are misleading, because of these you take yourself to be
what you are not.
3. The ‘I am’ is a
useful pointer, it shows where to seek, but not what to seek. Just have a good
look at it. Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about
yourself anything except ‘I am’, and that nothing can be pointed at, can
be your self, the need for the ‘I am’ is over - you are no longer intent
on verbalizing what you are. All definitions apply to your body only and to its
expressions.
Once this obsession with
the body goes, you will revert to your natural state. We discover the
natural state by being earnest, by searching, enquiring, questioning daily
and hourly, by giving one’s life to this discovery.
4. What makes the
present so different? Obviously, my presence, I am real for I am always ‘now’,
in the present, and what is with me now shares in my reality. The past is
in memory, the future – in imagination. There is nothing in the present event
itself that makes it stand out as real. A thing focused in the now is with
me, for I am ever present, it is my own reality that I impart to the
present event.
5. Refuse all thoughts
except one: the thought ‘I am’. The mind will rebel in the beginning, but
with patience and perseverance it will yield and keep quiet. Once you are
quiet, things will begin to happen spontaneously and quite naturally,
without any interference on your part.
6. To know the self as
the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and
joy. It is all very simple. Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to
see them as they are. When you can see everything as it is, you will also
see yourself as you are. It is like cleansing a mirror. The same mirror
that shows you the world as it is, will also show you your own face. The
thought ‘I am’ is the polishing cloth. Use it.
7. Why not turn away
from the experience to the experiencer and realize the full import of the
only true statement you can make: ‘I am’. Just keep in mind the feeling ‘I
am’, merge in it, till your mind and feeling become one. By repeated
attempts you will stumble on the right balance of attention and affection
and your mind will be firmly established in the thought-feeling ‘I am’.
Whatever you think, say or do, this sense of immutable and affectionate
being remains as the ever-present background of the mind.
8. Do not bother about
anything you want, or think, or do, just stay put in the thought and feeling,
‘I am’, focusing ‘I am’ firmly in your mind. All kinds of experience may
come to you – remain unmoved in the knowledge that all perceivable is transient
and only the ‘I am’ endures.
9. No way to
self-realization is short or long, but some people are more in earnest and some
are less. I can tell you about myself. I was a simple man, but I trusted
my Guru. What he told me to do, I did. He told me to concentrate on ‘I am’
– I did. He told me that I am beyond all perceivables and conceivables – I
believed. I gave my heart and soul, my entire attention and the whole of my
spare time (I had to work to keep family alive). As a result of faith and
earnest application, I realized myself (‘swarupa’) within three years. You may
choose any way that suits you; your earnestness will determine the rate of
progress. Establish yourself firmly in the awareness of ‘I am’. This is
the beginning and also the end of all endeavour.
10. To know what you are
you must first investigate and know what you are not. And to know what
you are not, you must watch yourself carefully, rejecting all that does
not necessarily go with basic fact ‘I am’.
The ideas: I am born at
a given place, at a given time, from my parents and now I am so-and-so, living
at, married to, father of, employed by, and so on, are not inherent in the
sense ‘I am’. Our usual attitude is ‘I am this’ or ‘that’.
Separate consistently
and perseveringly the ‘I am’ from ‘this’ or ‘that’ and try to feel what it
means to be, just to ‘be’, without being ‘this’ or ‘that’. All our habits
go against it and the task of fighting them is long and hard sometimes,
but clear understanding helps a lot. The clearer you understand that on
the level of the mind you can be described in negative terms only the
quicker you will come to the end of your search and realize your limitless
being.
11. When you see the
world you see God. There is no seeing God apart from the world. Beyond the
world to see God is to be God. The light by which you see the world, which is
God is the tiny little spark: ‘I am’, apparently so small and yet the first and
the last in every act of knowing and loving.
12. All is secondary to
the tiny little thing which is the ‘I am’. Without the ‘I am’ there is nothing.
All knowledge is about the ‘I am’. False ideas about this ‘I am’ lead to
bondage, right knowledge leads to freedom and happiness. The ‘I am’ denotes the
inner while ‘there is’ denotes the outer; both are based on the sense of being.
13. The sense of ‘I am’
is your own. You cannot part with it, but you can impart it to anything, as in
saying, I am young, I am rich, and so on. But such self-identifications are
patently false and the cause of bondage.
14. Give up all questions
except one ‘who am I?’ After all the only fact you are sure of is that you
‘are’.
The ‘I am’ is certain,
the ‘I am this’ is not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality.
15. ’I am’ itself is
God, the seeking itself is God. In seeking you discover that you are neither
the body nor the mind, and the love of the self in you is for the self in all.
The two are one. The consciousness in you and the consciousness in me,
apparently two, really one, seek unity and that is love. What do you love now?
The ‘I am’. Give your heart and mind to it, think of nothing else. This when
effortless and natural, is the highest state. In it love itself is the lover
and the beloved.
16. The impersonal is
real, the personal appears and disappears. ‘I am’ is the impersonal being. ‘I
am this’ is the person. The person is relative and the pure being – the
fundamental.
17. By focusing the mind
on ‘I am’, on the sense of being, ‘I am so-and-so” dissolves; ‘am a witness
only’ remains and that too submerges in ‘I am all’. Then the all becomes the
One and the One – yourself, not to be separate from me. Abandon the idea of a
separate ‘I’ and the question of ‘whose experience?’ will not arise. On a
deeper level my experience is your experience. Dive deep within yourself and
you will find it easily and simply. Go in the direction of ‘I am’.
18. Cling to the one
thing that matters, hold on to ‘I am’ and let go all else. This is ‘sadhana’.
In
realization there is
nothing to hold on to and nothing to forget. Everything is known, nothing is
remembered.
19. At the root of
everything is the feeling ‘I am’. The state of mind ‘there is a world’ is
secondary, for to be I do not need the world, the world needs me.
20. Beyond the mind
there is no such thing as experience. Experience is a dual state. You cannot
talk of
reality as an
experience. Once this is understood, you will no longer look for being and
becoming as separate and opposite. In reality they are one and separable, like
roots and branches of the same tree. Both can only exist in the light of
consciousness, which again arises in the wake of the sense ‘I am’. This is the
primary fact. If you miss it you miss all.
21. Everything is a play
of ideas. In the state free from ideation (nirvikalpa samadhi) nothing is
perceived. The root idea is ‘I am’. It shatters the state of pure consciousness
and is followed by the innumerable sensations and perceptions, feelings and
ideas, which in their totality constitute God and His world. The ‘I am’ remains
as the witness, but it is by the will of God that everything happens.
22. The concentration on
‘I am’ is a form of attention. Give your undivided attention to the most
important thing in your life – yourself. Of your personal universe you are the
center – without knowing the center what else can you know?
23. My advice to you is
very simple – just remember yourself, ‘I am’, it is enough to heal your mind
and take you beyond, just have some trust. I don’t mislead you. Why should I?
Do I want anything from you? I wish you well – such is my nature. Why should I
mislead you? Commonsense too will tell you that to fulfill a desire you must
keep your mind on it. If you want to know your true nature, you must have
yourself in mind all the time, until the secret of your being stands revealed.
24. It is right to say
‘I am’, but to say ‘I am this’, ‘I am that’, is a sign of not enquiring, not
examining, of mental weakness or lethargy. Practice (sadhana) consists of
reminding oneself forcibly of one’s pure ‘beingness’, of not being anything in
particular, not a sum of particulars, not even the totality of all particulars,
which make up a universe.
25. Be content with what
you are sure of. And the only thing you can be sure of is ‘I am’. Stay with it
and reject everything else. This is Yoga.
26. The one witness
reflects itself in the countless bodies as ‘I am’. As long as the bodies,
however subtle, last, the ‘I am’ appears as many. Beyond the body there is only
the One.
27. When I say ‘I am’, I
do not mean a separate entity with a body as its nucleus, I mean the totality
of being, the ocean of consciousness, the entire universe of all that is known.
I have nothing to desire for I am complete forever.
28. Words betray their
hollowness. The real cannot be described, it must be experienced. I cannot find
better words for what I know. What I say may sound ridiculous. But what the
words try to convey is the highest truth. All is one, however much we quibble.
And all is done to please the one source and goal of every desire, whom we all
know as the ‘I am’.
29. When I repeat: ‘I
am’, ‘I am’, I merely assert and re-assert an ever-present fact. You get tired
of my words because you do not see the living truth behind them. Contact it and
you will find the full meaning of words and of silence- both.
30. Self-remembrance,
awareness of “I am’ ripens man powerfully and speedily. Give up all ideas about
yourself and simply be. Stop making use of your mind and see what happens. Do
this one thing thoroughly. That is all.
31. The fact is you. The
only thing you know for sure is: ‘here and now I am’. Remove the ‘here and
now’, the ‘I am’ remains unassailable.
32. All I can say is ‘I
am’, all else is inference. But the inference has become a habit. Destroy all
habits of thinking and sleeping. The sense ‘I am’ is a manifestation of a
deeper cause, which you may call self, God, Reality or by any other name. The
‘I am’ is in the world but it is the key which can open the door out of the
world.
33. Only your sense ‘I
am’ though in the world, is not of the world. By no effort of logic you can
change the “I am’ into ‘I am not’. In the very denial of your being you assert
it. Once you realize that the world is your own projection, you are free of it.
You need not free yourself of a world that does not exist, except in your
imagination.
34. The sense ‘I am’ is
composed of pure light and the sense of being. The ‘I’ is there even without
the ‘am’. So is the pure light there whether you say ‘I’ or not. Become aware
of that pure light and you will never lose it. The beingness in being, the
awareness in consciousness, the interest in every experience – that is not
describable, yet perfectly accessible, for there is nothing else.
35. ’I am’ is ever
fresh. You do need to remember in order to ‘be’ As a matter of fact, before you
can experience anything, there must be the sense of being. At present your
being is mixed up with experiencing. All you need to do is to unravel being
from the tangle of experiences. Once you have known pure being, without being
this or that, you will discern it among experiences, and you will no longer be
misled by names and forms.
36. All talk of ‘gnana’
is a sign of ignorance. It is the mind that imagines that it does not know and
then comes to know. Reality knows nothing of these contortions. Even the idea
of God as the Creator is false. Do I owe my being to another being? Because ‘I
am” all ‘is’.
37. My teacher told me
to hold on to the sense ‘I am’ tenaciously and not to swerve from it even for a
moment. I did my best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time I
realized within myself the truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his
teaching, his face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind, in
the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am – unbound.
38. One has to
understand that the search for reality, God, Guru and the search for the self
are the same, when one is found all are found. When ‘I am’ and ‘God is’ become
in your mind indistinguishable, then something will happen and you will know
without a trace of doubt that God is because you are, you are because God is.
The two are one.
39. When ‘I am myself’
goes the ‘I am all’ comes. When the ‘I am all’ goes, ‘I am’ comes. When even ‘I
am’ goes, reality alone is, and in it every ‘I am’ is preserved and glorified.
40. I am now 74 years
old. And yet I feel that I am an infant. I feel clearly that in spite of all
the changes I am a child. My Guru told me that the child, which is you even
now, is your real self (‘swarupa’). Go back to that state of pure being, where
the ‘I am’ is still in its purity before it gets contaminated with ‘this I am’
or ‘that I am’. Your burden is of false self-identification – abandon them
all.
My Guru told me – ‘Trust
me. I tell you, you are divine. Take it as the absolute truth. Your joy is
divine; your suffering is divine too. All comes from God. Remember it always.
You are God, your will alone is done.’ I did believe him and soon realized how
wonderfully true and accurate were his words.
I did not condition
my mind by thinking: ‘I am God, I am wonderful, I am beyond.’ I simply followed
his instruction, which was to focus the mind on pure being, ‘I am’ and stay in
it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the ‘I am’ in my mind
and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In
it all disappeared - myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me.
Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.
41. Don’t you see that
it is your very search for happiness that makes you feel miserable? Try the
other way: indifferent to pain and pleasure, neither seeking, nor refusing,
give all your attention to the level on which ‘I am’ is timelessly
present.
Soon you will realize
that peace and happiness are in your very nature and it is only seeking them
through some particular channels that disturbs. Avoid the disturbance, that is
all. To seek there is no need, you would not seek what you already have. You
yourself are God, the Supreme Reality. To begin with, trust me, trust the teacher.
It enables you to make the first step - and then your trust is justified by
your own experience.
42. The best is the
simple feeling ‘I am’. Dwell on it patiently. Here patience is wisdom; don’t
think of failure. There can be no failure in this undertaking.
43. No use rebelling
against the very pattern of life. If you seek the immutable, go beyond
experience.
When I say remember ‘I
am’ all the time, I mean come back to it repeatedly. No particular thought can
be mind’s natural state, only silence. Not the idea of silence but silence
itself. When the mind is in its natural state, it reverts to silence spontaneously
after every experience, or rather, every experience happens against a
background of silence.
Now, what you have
learnt here becomes the seed. You may forget it – apparently. But it will live
and in due season sprout and grow and bring forth flowers and fruits. All will
happen by itself. You need not do anything, only don’t prevent it.
44. First know your own
mind and you will find that the question of other minds does not arise at all,
for there are no other people. You are the common factor, the only link between
the minds, Being is consciousness; ‘I am’ applies to all.
45. The ‘I am’ is a
thought, while awareness is not a thought; there is no ‘I am aware’ in
awareness.
Consciousness is an
attribute while awareness is not, one can be aware of being conscious, but not
conscious of awareness. God is the totality of consciousness, but awareness is
beyond all – being as well as non-being.
46. When you follow my
advice and try to keep the mind on the notion of ‘I am’ only, you become fully
aware of your mind and its vagaries. Awareness being lucid harmony (‘sattwa’)
in action dissolves dullness and quietens the restlessness of the mind and
gently but steadily changes its very substance.
This change need not be
spectacular; it maybe hardly noticeable; and yet it is a deep and fundamental
shift from darkness to light from inadvertence to awareness.
47. There is the body
and there is the Self, between them is the mind, in which the Self is reflected
as ‘I am’. Because of the imperfections of the mind, its crudity and
restlessness, lack of discernment and insight, it takes itself to be the body
and not the Self.
All that is needed is to
purify the mind so that it can realize its identity with the Self. When the
mind merges in the Self, the body presents no problems. It remains what it is,
an instrument of cognition and action, the tool and the expression of the
creative fire within.
48. The tangle which is
entirely below the level of consciousness can be set right by being with
yourself, the ‘I am’, by watching yourself in your daily life with alert
interest with the intention to understand rather than to judge, in full
acceptance of whatever may emerge, because it is there, you encourage the deep
to come to the surface and enrich your life and consciousness with its captive
energies.
This is the great work
of awareness; it removes obstacles and releases energies by understanding the
nature of life and mind. Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert
attention is the mother of intelligence.
49. There must be love
in the relation between the person who says ‘I am’ and the observer of the ‘I
am’. As long as the observer, the inner self; the ‘higher’ self considers
himself apart from the observed, the ‘lower’ self, despises it and condemns it,
the situation is hopeless. It is only when the observer (‘vyakta’) accepts the
person (‘vyakti’) as a projection or manifestation of himself, and so to say,
takes the self into the Self, the duality of ‘I’ and ‘this’ goes and the
identity of the outer and the inner, the Supreme Reality manifests itself.
50. There is no ‘I’
apart from the body nor the world. The three appear and disappear together. At
the root is the sense ‘I am’. Go beyond it. The idea ‘I-am-not-body’ is merely
an antidote to the idea ‘I am-the-body’, which is false. What is that ‘I am’? Unless
you know yourself, what else can you know?
51. All hangs on the
idea ‘I am’. Examine it very thoroughly. It lies at the root of every trouble.
This ‘I am’ idea was not born with you. You could have lived very well without
it. It came later due to your self-identification with the body. It created an
illusion of separation where there was none. It made you a stranger in your own
world alien and inimical. Without the sense of ‘I am’ life goes on. There are
moments when we are without the sense of ‘I am’, at peace and happy. With the
return of ‘I am’, trouble starts.
52. It is because the ‘I
am’ is false that it wants to continue. Reality need not continue – knowing
itself indestructible, it is indifferent to the destruction of forms and
expressions. To strengthen and stabilize the ‘I am’ we do all sorts of things –
all in vain for the ‘I am’ is being rebuilt from moment to moment. No ambition
is spiritual. All ambitions are for the sake of ‘I am’. If you want to make
real progress you must give up all ideas of personal attainment.
53. When I met my Guru,
he told me:’ you are not what you take yourself to be. Find out what you are.
Watch the sense ‘I am’,
find you real self’ I obeyed him because I trusted him; I did as he told me.
All my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence. And what a
difference it made, and how soon. It took me only three years to realize my
true nature. My Guru died soon after I met him, but it made no difference. I
remembered what he told me and persevered. The fruit of it is here, with me.
54. All directions are
within the mind. I am not asking you to look in any particular direction. Just
look away from all that happens in your mind and bring it to the feeling ‘I
am’. The ‘I am’ is not a direction. It is the negation of all directions.
Ultimately even the ‘I am’ will have to go for you need not keep asserting what
is obvious. Bringing the mind to the feeling ‘I am’ merely helps turning the
mind away from everything else.
55. Tirelessly I draw
your attention to the one incontrovertible factor – that of being. Being needs
no proofs – it proves itself. If only you go deep into the fact of being and
discover the vastness and the glory, to which the ‘I am’ is the door, and cross
the door and go beyond, your life will be full of happiness and light. Believe
me, the effort needed is as nothing when compared with the discoveries arrived
at.
56. Hold on to the sense
‘I am’ to the exclusion of everything else. When this mind becomes completely
silent, it shines with a new light and vibrates with new knowledge. It all
comes spontaneously; you need only to hold on to the ‘I am’.
57. Begin with feeling
‘I am’. All else is neither true nor false, it seems real when it appears, it
disappears when it is denied. A transient thing is a mystery. The real is
simple, open, clear and kind, beautiful and joyous. It is completely free of
contradictions. It is ever-new, ever-fresh, and endlessly creative. Being and
non-being, life and death, all distinctions merge in it.
58. The teacher tells
the watcher you are not this, there is nothing yours in this, except the point
of ‘I am’, which is the bridge between the watcher and his dream. ‘I am this’,
‘I am that’ is a dream, while pure ‘I am’ has the stamp of reality on it. You
have tasted so many things – all came to naught.
Only the sense ‘I am’
persisted – unchanged. Stay with the changeless among the changeful, until you
are able to go beyond.
59. First you create a
world, then the ‘I am’ becomes a person, who is not happy for various reasons.
He goes out in search of happiness, meets a Guru who tells him’ You are not a
person, find out who you are’. He does it and goes beyond.
60. He who is beyond
time – is the un-nameable. A glowing ember moved round and round quickly
enough, appears as a glowing circle. When the movement ceases, the ember
remains. Similarly, the ‘I am’ in movement creates the world. The ‘I am’ at
peace becomes the Absolute.
61. Immortality is
freedom from the feeling: ‘I am’. Yet it is not extinction. On the contrary, it
is a state infinitely more real, aware and happy than you can possibly think
of. Only self-consciousness is no more. Who would remain even to say ‘I am the
witness’? When there is no ‘I am’, where is the witness? In the timeless state
there no self to take refuge in.
62. The witness is both
unreal and real. The last remnant of the illusion, the first touch of the real.
To say: I am only the witness is both false and true, false because of the ‘I
am’, true because of the witness. It is better to say: ‘there is witnessing’.
The moment you say ‘I am’, the entire universe comes into being along with its
creator.
63. Trust the teacher.
Take my case. My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense ‘I am’ and to give
attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular
course of breathing or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened I
would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense ‘I am’, it may
look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told
me so. Yet it worked! Obedience is a powerful solvent of all desires and fears.
64. Look at the ‘I am’
as a sign of love between the inner and the outer, the real and the appearance.
Just like in a dream all
is different, except the sense of ‘I’, which enables you to say ‘I dreamt’, so
does the sense of ‘I am’ enable you to say, ‘I am my real Self again. I do
nothing nor is anything done to me. I am what I am and nothing can affect me. I
appear to depend on everything, but in fact all depends on me’.
65. In the immensity of
consciousness a light appears, a tiny point that moves rapidly and traces
shapes, thoughts and feelings, concepts and ideas, like a pen writing on paper.
And the ink that leaves a trace is memory. You are that tiny point and by your
movement the world is ever re-created. Stop moving and there will be no world.
Look within and you will find that the point of light is the reflection of the
immensity of light in the body as the sense ‘I am’. There is only light all
else appears.
66. To be the point of light
(reflected as the sense ‘I am’) tracing the world is ‘turiya’. To be the light
itself is ‘turiyatita’. But of what use are names when reality is so near?
67. The sense of ‘I am’
is both unreal and real. Unreal when I say ‘I am this or that’. It is real when
we mean ‘I am not this nor that’. The ‘I am’ and the witness are not one, but
without one the other cannot be.
68. Give your heart and
mind to brooding over the ‘I am’, what is it, how is it, what is its source,
its life, its meaning. It is very much like digging a well. You reject all that
is not water, till you reach the lifegiving spring.
69. The witness and
consciousness appear and disappear together. The witness or the sense ‘I am’
too is transient but is given importance to break the spell of the known; the
illusion that only the perceivable is real. Presently for you perception is
primary and witnessing secondary, revert it to make witnessing primary and
perception secondary (The ‘I am’ is just a device to revert).
70. Look at yourself
steadily – it is enough. The door that locks you in is also the door that lets
you out.
The ‘I am’ is the door.
Stay at it until it opens. As a matter of fact, it is open, only you are not at
it.
You are waiting at the
non-existent painted doors, which will never open.
71. Keep the ‘I am’ in
the focus of awareness, remember that you ‘are’, watch yourself ceaselessly and
the unconscious will flow into the conscious without any special effort on your
part.
The person merges into
the witness, the witness into awareness, awareness into pure being, yet
identity is not lost, only its limitations are lost. It is transfigured and
becomes the real Self, the ‘sadguru’, the eternal friend and guide.
To go deeper, meditation
is essential, the striving to go beyond the states of sleep, dream and waking.
In the beginning the attempts are irregular, then recur more often, become
regular, then continuous and intense, until all obstacles are conquered.
72. All that happens,
happens in and to the mind, not to the source of the ‘I am’. Once you realize
that all happens by itself (call it destiny, or the will of God or mere
accident), you remain as witness only, understanding and enjoying, but not
perturbed.
73. Before you can say
‘I am’, you must be there to say it. Being need not be self-conscious. You need
not know to be, but you must ‘be’ to know.
74. The subtle body is
created with the emergence of the ‘I am’ idea. The two are one. It is
momentary.
Real when present,
unreal when over. Call it empirical, or actual, or factual. It is the reality
of immediate experience, here and now, which cannot be denied.
You can question the
description and the meaning, but not the event itself. Being and non-being
alternate and their reality is momentary. The immutable reality lies beyond
space and time. Realize the momentariness of being and non-being and be free
from both.
75. The ‘I am’ is at the
root of all appearance and the permanent link in the succession of events that
we call life; but I am beyond the ‘I am’.
76. All the glories will
come with mere dwelling on the feeling ‘I am’. It is the simple that is
certain, not the complicated. Somehow, people do not trust the simple, the
easy, the always available. Why not give a honest trial to what I say? It may
look very small and insignificant, but it is like a seed that grows into a
mighty tree. Give yourself a chance.
77. I was taught to give
attention to my sense of ‘I am’ and I found it supremely effective. Therefore,
I can speak of it with full confidence.
But often people come
with bodies, brains and minds so mishandled, perverted and weak that the state
of formless attention is beyond them. In such cases some simpler token of
earnestness (like repeating a ‘mantra’) is appropriate. After all it is the
earnestness that is indispensable, the crucial factor.
‘Sadhana’ is only a
vessel and it must be filled to be brim with earnestness, which is but love in
action. For nothing can be done without love.
78. Delve deeply into
the sense ‘I am’ and you surely discover that the perceiving center is
universal, as universal as the light that illumines the world. All that happens
in the universe happens to you, the silent witness. On the other hand, whatever
is done, is done by you, the universal and inexhaustible energy.
79. Theoretically you
always have a chance for self-realization. In practice a situation must arise,
when all the factors necessary for self-realization are present. This need not
discourage you. Your dwelling on the fact of ‘I am’ will soon create another
chance. For attitude attracts opportunity. All you know is second-hand. Only ‘I
am’ is first-hand and needs no proofs. Stay with it.
