A Treatise on Vedanta

By Swami Dayananda Saraswati

Creation is two-fold.  One, the creation or scheme of things in which you find yourself.  And two, what you make out of it.  Each one of us finds himself or herself in a scheme of things, let us call it the world, the creation, which each one as a person is not the author of.  Nor our forefathers could claim authorship.  In fact, each of us was born into this creation, a set up which was already there, and which we can't completely change.  All the changes which you and I can bring about in this set up are changes which are possible in that very system, not the impossible.  Therefore, each one of us is confronted with a world which is already there, which is governed by definite laws which allow only the possible, and these laws we cannot mend or amend but only make use of if we know them.

 

On the other hand, I can claim an authorship of a creation, and that is that which I make out of this very creation in which I find myself.  If I am capable of thinking and also capable of desiring, of willing, I can always look at this world as it is, or I can look at this world as I want it to be.  More often than not, we look at the world as we want it to be, and it doesn't always conform to our wish.  When it conforms to my wish, I seem to be at home with the world.  When it doesn't conform to my wish, I feel ill at ease in the scheme.  And so what should I do now to be comfortable with it?  I have got to rearrange the scheme, hoping then I will be comfortable.  I put forth efforts introducing certain things, or I go about removing certain other things, hoping then the rearrangement will make me feel at home.  So, whether the scheme is your house, or the community, or the state, or the nation, or the world -- whichever the circumference of your vision at the time -- well, you wish it were rearranged.  I have got different demands, which, if fulfilled, I hope will be comfortable in the scheme.  These demands are positive or negative in nature.  So the demands in whose fulfillment I hope that I will be comfortable in the scheme, they are positive.  The demands in whose non-fulfillment I hope to be comfortable, they are negative.  We can call the positive demands as `likes,' Rega in Sanskrit, the negative demands as `dislikes,' Dvess in Sanskrit.  And at any given time in your life, when you evaluate how happy you are, it is determined by the fulfillment of your likes and the avoidance of your dislikes.

 

Even though all of us have likes and dislikes -- this is a universal fact, the likes and dislikes are not universal in nature, in that the objects of the like and dislike always differ from individual to individual and from time to time.  An object remaining the same, it will be a like for some person, even that rubbish in your garage, and it will also be a dislike for someone else, if not for you.  That rubbish which at one time was so cherished by you in your home, now you can't stand it, you've thrown it out, and, later, who knows, you may unwittingly buy it back as a fashionable antique.  And these likes I have been pursuing -- some come about through my efforts; many don't get fulfilled, even though I put forth adequate effort; some have come about just by chance, it seems; and many more I have yet to get to.  So my success in life, if I evaluate all the changes I have gone through, is estimated from the standpoint of my likes and dislikes.  But no matter how much I rearrange the scheme, still things that I don't want happen, and things that I want don't happen.  Thus, taking into account all my demands, these likes and dislikes, I find I am not successful, and so I keep on struggling throughout my life.

 

Now, these likes and dislikes, since they differ from individual to individual and from time to time, they are purely subjective.  And being subjective, they are not the attributes of the objects out there in the scheme called the creation.  So the world doesn't deserve such likes and dislikes.  They are your personal projections upon the scheme of things.  I hope this is clear.  If these personal projections upon the scheme are there, I would say I am not living in this world as it is, I am living in a world of my own making, of my own creation.  And, therefore, since each one of us looks at the world through the goggles of likes and dislikes, as it were, each one of us has no right to really complain about the world, that the world is `bad'.  Why?  Because we are talking about our private world which is `bad'.  So, before the world is labeled as `bad,' I must necessarily knock off those likes and dislikes and rub my eyes and again look at the world as it is.

 

No person can say he is free from likes and dislikes until he really knocks them off.  These likes and dislikes are something with which we grow, and there is no other way of a child growing.  If you offer a young child some ice cream, he will take it without bothering what flavor it is.  But more exposed to the modern world, to the various flavors and things like that, he is more and more educated, that child will develop preferences towards only certain flavors, and so forth.  He has an eye now to appreciate one flavor from another, because he has got a name for it.  Previously it was only `ice cream.'  Now it is `chocolate ribbon' and `peppermint.'  So also it is with the various shades of colors, of emotions, and so on.  In everything you have definite fine likes and dislikes, the more fine they are, the more civilized and sensitive you are.  And when you are more sensitive, naturally I would say it is a great achievement.  It is the sensitive person who can really appreciate things.  But then in its train, this sensitivity which is marked by our fine likes and fine dislikes brings about certain problems.  You never get anything without paying for it.  Now, for this sensitive person to be unhappy, he doesn't require any calamity.  He requires only a change in the weather.  He can measure the temperature and so on, and so a slight chill or drop in the barometer is enough to dampen him at the beginning of the weekend.  A small little frown in the face of my beloved or a certain tone of voice is enough to make me flat.  Thus, the more sensitive I am, the more prone am I to become unhappy, miserable.  Not only am I more conscious of the world outside, but as I mature, as I grow, I become more and more conscious of myself.

 

A dog is conscious of its urges and the immediate environment, but it is not conscious of itself.  It does not praise itself or condemn itself.  A dog doesn't know any better.  It can maybe anticipate for a short time a pat on the head or a kick from behind, but certainly it will not hold a definite conclusion about himself that `I am an underdog' or `I am well bred.'  The word `underdog' is our creation, it is not in the dog's diction.  The dog has got to be conscious of a few things around so that it can keep its life going, so that it can fulfill its physiological and biological urges -- nothing more.  There is no ethical dog, because there is no unethical dog, as it never transgresses the instinctive laws that govern a dog's species.  A dog will always be a dog.  Why?  Because they have no choice, whether it be a dog or a cow or a tiger or a bug.

 

But whereas this human is a fellow who is not only conscious of his urges such as hunger and thirst, he is conscious of himself, too.  And when he becomes more sensitive, he is conscious of his emotions much more acutely, and he is going to judge himself, a self viewed from these changing emotions.  Then, naturally, I am going to label myself as `sorrowful,' as `a failure,' as `unlucky,' or as `lucky,' as one who is `looked down upon,' `nobody loves me,' or `I am lonely.'  Why?  Because I am conscious of myself.  Understand this, it is a very important fact in life -- that I am conscious of myself besides my natural urges, unlike the dog.  And therefore appeasing all my urges, physiological and biological, still I have no reason to complain.  Because the self that I am conscious of is not the one that I can accept, as I have got my own likes and dislikes, not all of which are yet fulfilled.

 

If each one of you looks into yourself and takes note of all those things that you can't part with without being unhappy, my God, it starts with the style of hair, the type of dress, the type of glasses, and so on, so many silly things no to count your fortune or your various relationships with others.  We each have a million small silly likes, those things which you can't happily part with.  And there is an equal number of dislikes, because they are just their opposites.  So I don't want to age, I want to be young all the time.  And the marks of aging, like the wrinkles and gray hair, you don't want to have, even though you can't hold them off.  There are a lot of things you don't want -- loss of money, loss of name, loss of power, loss of health, just to name a few.  So, with these millions of petty likes and dislikes, I come and look at this world, and moreover, I look at myself.  When I look at this world, it looks to be something I can really negotiate with these two hands and legs and with these two circles of eyes and ears and nose with a small pokey mind behind.  Well, I find it is enormous right in front of me.  There are so many things I want to hold on to, and again there are many things which keep coming, that I have got to stall for which I have no hands at all.  Time being what it is, it keeps bringing about things which I can't stall.  I work for many things, but more often than not, it just doesn't seem to be enough.  It doesn't produce the results that I desire.  The things that I have to achieve are so many and my whole life is already something that is so intense.  So the world is too much.  And, again, with these likes and dislikes, when I look at myself, I find, well, `I am a failure,' naturally.  Because he is going to estimate himself from the fulfillment of his likes and dislikes, and it is impossible to fulfill all of them.  In the process of fulfilling one, he picks up a few more.  It is something like going to a shopping center.  You want for only one or two items -- you come back with a few more, always.  Or at least you take note of what new to get next time, a few more desires.  This is why it pays any business to hire salesmen, because they know they can always entice you to buy more. 

 

And the world is like that.  The more you see, the more you want, it seems to entice you.  And, therefore, the likes don't seem to really come to an end.  And the dislikes, so they are the opposites, they always maintain their number.  Every time the fellow draws the balance sheet of himself as a person, the balance is always minus.  Naturally he feels himself as one who is incomplete, who is something that is not perfect and who has got to become complete.  And he looks out, and he finds the world is too much, the competition is too much, there is no hope.  Naturally he becomes restless, he is frustrated, he doesn't know what to do with himself.  Why?  Because he can't be at home with himself, a self that is incomplete.

 

Therefore, what will I do?  There is no other way, either I quite the whole mess or I escape from it.  Either I escape from the world permanently or I escape from myself through various diversions -- spiritual, religious, brain-desensitizing, or whatever.  I weekend from myself.  These outings or groups may be fine, we don't know, but more often we identify with them not for their worth but just to escape from ourselves.  And so we go in for various hobbies and sports and adventures or just putter about to fill up the day so that the mind remains occupied, not giving it a moment to re-evaluate ourselves.  I can't face myself with all these unfulfilled demands, I have no reason to be comfortable with such a self.  So, naturally, I condemn myself, I can't stand myself, I always try to escape.  Therefore I seek some identity somewhere.  Even in seeking love, I want somebody to tell me `I love you.'  Why?  Because I am doubtful whether I can ever be loved.  I know I am empty, I don't love myself, so I want to be loved by others.  So, if somebody says, `I love you,' my God, I feel such a great relief, and I hold on to that fellow.  And that fellow has the same problem a me, so he finds the hold is too much, he wriggles out of it.  Because I can't accept myself, I demand all the time.  In all my relationships I demand, and no relationship is ever lasting because the other fellow is the same as me.  So, when you love a person, you don't love that person, a really, you love that source and capacity to make you happy, to satisfy your demands.  And when you begin to demand certain things that are not in him, you find your love ebbs away.  You can love only a source of happiness, you cannot love a source of unhappiness.  And you cannot love yourself as a person riddled with seething demands, so you keep on trying to fulfill these demands, hoping you will one day become satisfied.  That day is always tomorrow, maybe tomorrow.  And in the process you pop off.  This is the human problem, the problem of wanting to be different from what I am.  This problem is peculiar to the human being because he alone is conscious of himself.

 

If that is clear, then the struggle in my life is not for this or that, not for the fulfillment of one demand after another.  It is for an achievement or accomplishment of a self who is free, absolutely free.  Like even a child, once he learns to walk, he doesn't go in for the wall, the hands of the mother, or the pre-ambulator the various aids to stand to walk.  Once he finds the strength and knack to stand and to walk on his own legs, he doesn't want those crutches.  Even if he falls in the beginning, he takes the fall in stride and again tries.  Why?  Because it is natural on the part of the child to be free, free from all crutches.  Similarly is the grown up person who has a number of things he wants in order to be happy, to be secure, and he also is a dependent in his own world of likes and dislikes.  He is not yet on his psychological legs.  He is still on his fours mentally.  He demands so many things to be happy, to feel secure, and he wants to be free from all these crutches of security like the child -- but he cannot, because he finds his world as too much and himself as so inadequate.

 

It is, in fact, this freedom that all have in view.  Even though each one has got immediate ends, the ultimate end that everyone is seeking over the shoulder of these various small ends, is exactly this freedom.  And this freedom is not something that is chosen as an end by a given individual, it is an end taken to by all and sundry.  Anybody who can think, who is a human being, who has got an eloquent heart, well, that person is conscious of himself, a self that is incomplete and therefore wants to be complete.  So this completeness, call it `fullness,' call it `freedom,' call it `liberation,' that freedom is the end in view.  There is no choice between happiness and unhappiness, there is no choice between bondage and freedom.  Why?  Because you don't want unhappiness, you don't want bondage.  So there is no choice.  So you can't choose this freedom, it is not something that you can compromise for anything else.  And so it is this freedom from all crutches which everyone seeks in and through all the struggles of life.  If you call this freedom or liberation a `spiritual' and then everyone is spiritual, in fact.  And if going after all these various small ends in life is `material,' well, everyone is material too. Everyone is spiritual, as there is nothing material about appreciating a rose.  Everyone is material, including the pope, as there is nothing spiritual about tackling a pizza.  Everyone is spiritual, there is no choice.  Therefore, freedom is a choiceless end which everyone seeks.  Like even the river seeks the ocean, to lose its small identity, its name, and its history in that limitless ocean from whence it was born, to whence it has got to go back.

 

Well, something like that, perhaps, the human heart doesn't accept anything less, always wants something more, nothing satisfies him, and he never comes to a point when all likes and dislikes are fulfilled so he can feel a free person.  Because these likes and dislikes, as you fulfill them, they keep on changing, and more and more are born.  Like the shopping center, the world seems to hook me all the time.  So I blame the world, I pass the buck to the world and say the world is `bad.'  But, like I said in the beginning, we should definitely think twice before we accuse the world.  Because each one lives in his own personal world.  The world as it is, without these likes and dislikes, that world we don't seem to see at all.  So, if not by fulfilling these demands, I have got to settle an account with the world, perhaps I should learn to look at the world in a different way, free from my projections.  And so perhaps I should learn to look at myself in a different way.  Then alone maybe that freedom can be mine.

 

Well, friends, there are times when we do look at the world as it is, and at those times I find I am satisfied with myself for the time being.  Sitting on the cliff overlooking the ocean, the blue sky above, and the crimson sky on the horizon, and the birds just floating about -- at that time perhaps your demanding mind just gets itself canceled.  You don't want the ocean to be different, the sky to be different, the birds to be different.  You just accept it as it is, you don't want to change anything.  And, in fact, at that time you yourself don't want to be different.  Just where you are is fine, you don't care to be walking the beach below or anywhere else.  You are happy with yourself by yourself for that time.  You just appreciate the set up that obtains, and that the demanding mind is no where around.  It is then that I am seeing the world as it is, the world whose author perhaps is God, I don't know, but definitely it is not the world of my making, not he edition of my editing mind.  And it is also not anything I did at that time to become happy with myself. I just found that I am happy.  I didn't choose to be happy, nor did I will to be happy at that time in that place.  I don't know, somehow I found myself here as a happy adequate self.  It is these moments in life, few and far between, which keep us going in life, otherwise we would have quit long ago.

 

So there is a possibility of looking at the world as it is, looking at myself as I am.  When I just accept myself as I am, and the world, I find it is very beautiful.  I am at home with the world and with myself.  It is this at-homeness which I am always seeking in life, for which I struggle all the time, yet can never seem to command.  As I obtain now I have no reason to be one who is acceptable, who is adequate.  I have a lot of demands, and I keep rearranging the world, and myself I want to be always different.  Thereby I just suffer a bondage, a limitation of my own creation.  And it is the solution to this problem, the human problem of not being at-home with myself and the world, to put it in a simple manner, that is the teaching which goes under the name Vedanta.  It is this teaching which solves this problem.

 

If this is the nature of the problem, then what is the nature of the solution?  We must now discern the solution.

 

Now, what is natural, natural about ourselves, is always gladly accepted.  Whatever we reject, we don't want to have, that is always what is unnatural.  For instance, nobody goes about complaining that my eyes see, my ears hear, my heart keeps beating.  It is natural for the eyes to see, because it is, in fact, the nature of the eyes to see, the ears to hear, and so on.  But if they don't see, they don't hear, or the heart skips a beat, then naturally I complain.  Nobody complains that he is irritated because there are eyeballs in these sockets, but if there is a small speck of dust in the eye, naturally you can't stand it.  A thing that is not natural to you is always extraneous, always rejected; you can't stand any of them.  Even your physical system doesn't accept those bugs which don't belong to the system; there is a big flight leading to your running a temperature.  That is because these are all intruders, and they are to be rejected. 

 

If this logic can be extended, well, all that I don't want to have, I would say, is not my nature.  Nobody wants to feel inadequate and suffer; that means inadequacy and sorrow is something that I can't stand.  That I cannot stand it proves it is not natural to me.  I don't like sorrow, I don't like agitation -- all these are conditions of the mind which I don't accept.  I want to reject them.  Why?  Because they are unnatural to me.  Nobody complains that he is happy, that he feels free, that he feels adequate about himself or herself.  But, then, sorrow, bondage, and limitation, the sense of inadequacy -- these are the things I can't stand.  By the very fact that I can't stand any of them, it is clear that I am just the opposite.  If I can't stand sorrow, my nature must be happiness.  Otherwise, why should I not stand sorrow?  I would be quite at home being sorrowful, if that is part of my nature.  Nobody can have a nice sleep just because he has a bug in his right ear, it goes on singing a lullaby to him.  Whereas, if the wind blows, it is natural, we accept it.  The fire is hot, it is natural, we accept it.  Similarly, if unhappiness is my nature, I would be the happiest guy being unhappy.  The more unhappy, the more I would be quite at home with myself.  But it is not so.  I feel ill at east with myself if I find that I am sorrowful, that I am limited, that I am agitated.

 

So happiness, freedom, silence -- these must be my nature.  Logic tells us this, and it is, in fact, our experience in life.  But if they are my nature, then why do I miss them?  Why aren't I happy and free?  How can one miss one's self?  Therefore, if I am something, and I still miss it, and I begin searching for it -- the searching, I would say, stems from self-disowning, self-ignorance.  If I have something and I don't know that I have that something, I am ignorant of it, then I must necessarily work for it.  So, not being at home with myself and thus wanting myself to be different and the world to be different -- this struggling, at the root of it is self-disowning, self-ignorance.

 

Now, if there is something which I must necessarily work for, struggle for, then I must use a proper and adequate means to gain that something.  And all means fall under two categories.  One is a thing which is away from us which is desirable, and we go in for it, the means being the effort to achieve it in time and space.  Where you are and the place you have got to reach, there is a distance between the two points, so efforts are necessary to reach there.  Or, if the desired end is something to be produced or to be purified or to be modified, all the other forms of change that are possible, there is time involved, and in time the efforts put forth may achieve the end.  But definitely, according to the end to be achieved, the effort put forth must be appropriate and adequate.  To reach this place, you must put forth the appropriate effort, such as driving, walking, etc.  And moreover, that effort has to be adequate, you must neither overshoot the place or undershoot.  That is because the gain that you achieve as a result of a course of action that you have undertaken will be always appropriate to the very course of action, the result being inherent in the very action.  Action, therefore, cannot produce a result that is not therein.  Thus, if I put a step forward, I will move a step forward, neither backwards nor sideways will I move.  Nor will I move two steps forward or even remain at the same point, after putting that step forward.  And thus the result is always appropriate to the means.

 

Therefore, what anyone can gain by his efforts is something that is limited.  Any small action or series of actions that I do, they can produce only the appropriate result, and that result will necessarily be limited, according to the effort put forth.  An for any gain, there is always a loss in terms of the effort put forth, always an investment.  Moreover, between the various ends to be attained, if I must choose, then necessarily this involves the negation of the others.  If I choose to go here, then I lose whatever advantages that can be had of being somewhere else instead.  Even if I go to the heavens, I tell you, I will definitely miss whatever I have here in my home, in this community, in this country, on this earth.  Because heaven, being a place, is not going to be the earth.  If heaven were the earth, then what advantage can be had from going to the heavens?  You can't have both, as the saying goes.  You can't have your cake and eat it too.  And so living in this world as we are, a relative world, any gain that we gather is going to be limited in nature and a loss will always be there.  Because the gain is only one side, there is always the other side, as there is no one-sided thing.  If you are a bachelor, definitely you are denying yourself a happiness that marriage can bring.  And if you are married, of course, you have lost that old state of single blessedness.

           

Now the problem is, I can't stand my inadequacy, I feel myself a person who is wanting, so naturally I want to get rid of the wanting person, remember.  And I always come up with a bright idea, "Oh, if I can get this, I can get rid of this guy, the wanting person."  He doesn't want to be the wanting person, he wants to he the wanted person, the person who should be loved by him, loved by everybody.  So, with this stinging want in the bonnet of my mind, well, I can't just rest content.  I must get rid of the want.  So either I go about fulfilling the want or I replace that want for a new one, due to new experiences, if not better education or better set of values.  When I fulfill the want, the want is gone.  That means, with reference to that want I am freed, and I love that freedom.  Like that child, how he struggles to be free from those crutches of security, if this exactly is our love, the love for freedom, that makes you struggle on your legs, it is the same love for freedom that makes you struggle in life, the freedom from all psychological crutches.

 

I want to be secure with myself, as long as I hold on to a thing for my security, I am, in fact, insecure.  Is it not true?  If the pre-ambulator is taken away, the child is flat.  So the child is insecure, being secure all right with the pre-ambulator.  That is what happens to us.  We hold on to a number of securities -- material, emotional, even intellectual securities.  Some ideology he identifies with, and he always feels himself something, not a non-entity.  He feels empty about himself, so he wants a number of things.  So we go after things and join groups and what not.  But all these are just an escape from one security to another.  By the very fact that you go from one and to another end, this shows that you are only changing securities, but you don't become secure for that.  And that I am insecure is a fact, because of the fact that I hold on to a number of things for which I cannot part with happily, remember.  So from our hair style and shampoo brand onwards, we have a number of things we can't part with happily.  A million small silly things, leave alone the big ones. 

 

Clinging to all of them, if you say, "I am a free person," I sympathize with you.  Any one of them is lost, you are down and under.  Why, even to apprehend the loss of it, you've had it.  So you always try to lock them up someway, and walking away, you turn and come back to hang on that lock just to be sure.  And all the opposites of what you want, your dislikes, they are of equal number.  And their arrival is doom for your security, for your happiness.  so, therefore, with my two hands and two legs and these small beads of eyes and ears and nose with a pokey little mind behind, I want to hold on to so many things and stall many others for which I don't have enough hands.  I can walk on a tight rope, but this jugglery is not so easy.

 

And everything that I can achieve is limited by the very effort I can put forth.  I am five foot seven, one hundred and forty pounds; any effort I put forth, or even a Hercules can put forth, can but be limited in time and space.  I can only reach so far and no farther, and reaching there, I will be missing other places.  And in this short lifetime I can only put forth so much effort, not more than that.  And even putting forth effort, whether I get the result I hope for or not, well, it is anybody's guess.  And, hence, if I am inadequate as I obtain now and I gain through my efforts something that is away from me, with that gain the inadequate plus a limited thing will be equal to what?  The inadequate plus my inadequacy will be equal to what?  Not an adequate person, inadequate.  This is a great truth about life that you should know.  An inadequate person plus something which he has gathered right now as a result of his efforts is not going to be adequate, for in that very gain there is a loss, and the gain itself is limited in nature.  The limited plus the limited will not become limitless.  The inadequate, the limited, the insecure person plus something that is again limited, insecure, as it is bound in time and space, is going to be insecure.  Because that is mathematics.  A finite sum like one and a finite sum like a million, both of them have the same distance between themselves and infinity.  Between one and infinity, the distance is infinity.  Between a million and infinity, the distance is infinity; it will not be any closer please.  Therefore, the inadequate guy with a limited thing will find himself still inadequate. 

           

So this fellow has gathered millions, still wanting more and more, till finally he decides to find a swami.  The swami tells him, "Hey, do you know why you are inadequate?  You are holding on to millions, in simplicity is bliss, so you please give them up.  Of course, when you do, I am here to take them."  Well, this swami is in just another business, same as the other.  He says, "You must renounce and when you are ready to renounce, you can give to me."  It seems God has become a pauper begging now-a-days.  Anyway, so the inadequate plus millions makes him enjoy the same distance from adequacy, because that is logic, and that is our experience, too.  You need not be having the millions, just ask the one who has, he will say, "Everything is all right, but I don't get along now with my wife properly."  And he has got so many accounts to keep track of, they get mixed up in his mind, he can't sleep.  So he consumes all the sedatives and smokes two packs a day.  His wife wants a divorce now, and he doesn't know where to get the two million dollar settlement.  So millions don't really make a million difference.  If it did, then all the politicians and actors and actresses and sports stars and heads of businesses should everyone be happy and adequate.  Marilyn Monroe, who had millions of fans, must not have committed suicide, and Howard Hughes died the happiest guy.  Is it so?  It is clear, the inadequate plus millions is still inadequate.  And the inadequate minus millions, the millions you have renounced now, is still what?  Inadequate.  Previously at least he didn't beg for money, he begged only for some crumbs of happiness in the bars and casinos.  Now he has renounced, and having given up the millions, he feels inadequate minus the money.  At least he was inadequate comfortably, physically comfortable.  Now he is inadequate and uncomfortable.  Physical comfort is not happiness.  A beggar can be unhappy lying in the gutter and another fellow can be unhappy lying on a water bed, remember that.  Satisfying all your urges, physiological and biological, still you have reason to complain.

           

And what we do in life is only this, either we are after something or we want to get rid of something.  You are inadequate without it, so you go after it.  Or you are inadequate with it, so you get rid of it.  Both prove all right that I am inadequate.  So, if not by acquiring and not by giving up can I become adequate, therefore the search should be of a different nature.  Understand?

           

Then what should I do?  So I can't move at all now.  Any change, any motion, is either an acquiring or relinquishing of some sort.  So, without change, how do I become adequate?  Well, without motion, without change, if I have to become adequate, then there is no `becoming' involved.  There is no change involved, therefore the word `become' is a misnomer.  I used a wrong word purposefully.  So without a change, without becoming, if I have to become, then it is very clear I have to gain it only by the other means, the second means.  Remember, the first means was the acquiring of what is away from me by means of effort.  What then is the other means?  It is the gaining of what is already gained.  If you have something and still you miss it, then to gain it, it doesn't require any struggle, any effort, or investment on your part.  It is rather just an owning up of what is already there.

           

There is a story which illustrates this.  One day a fellow left his house to go to the weekly market.  He went to buy five donkeys with which he hoped to use the sure-footed beasts to earn a livelihood for him and his wife in this mountainous region.  He bought the five donkeys, and returning home, he felt tired walking, so he rode one of the donkeys.  He reached home, and his wife was waiting for him; she came out.  And this fellow counted the donkeys.  He found there are only four donkeys.  He got alarmed and said, "I say, where is the fifth donkey?"  I went to the market and bought five donkeys; I have got only four donkeys; where is the fifth donkey?"  And she asked, "Do you say you bought five donkeys?"  "Yes, there are only four now."  And she said, "I don't see four, I see six of them."  The fellow got enlightened.  He was riding the fifth donkey.  He was the possessor of the fifth donkey, and he wanted to be the possessor of the fifth donkey.  He didn't have to buy it back again, it was there very much.  He only came to know.  Without change, without becoming, he became the possessor of the fifth donkey, understand?  And, therefore, the gain is of the already gained, not the gain of the not yet gained.

           

Remember, what is not yet gained by me, what is away from me, if it is gained, it will be limited in nature.  If at all there is such a thing as adequacy, which we will talk more about later, and if there is such a thing as feeling inadequate about myself, then that adequacy cannot be the result of an effort, of a struggle.  It can only be the gain of the already gained.  If there is such a thing as limitless as adequacy, I can't gain it as a result of my efforts in terms of action.  The inadequate plus a limited gain will remain inadequate, limited.  Suppose there is such a person as an adequate being, as a free, limitless being, which we all want to be and which must be as I don't love inadequacy, remember, and so if adequacy is my very nature it being so natural for me, therefore it should be gained only in terms of gaining the already gained.  Do you see the logic?  By a process of change and becoming I can't become limitless.  And if I choicelessly desire this limitlessness, this freedom which can only be my nature, as it is in that freedom alone I feel at home with myself and I feel ill at ease being limited, then not by effort do I solve the problem but by gaining the already gained.  That is, I must come to know that I am in fact what I want to be.  So if the problem is being ill at ease with myself, and this is due to a self-disowning, a self-ignorance, then there must be such a thing as self-knowledge.

           

It is true that man is ignorant of himself.  Why?  Because there is no chance for him to know himself in life.  Every one of us was born totally ignorant.  When I was born, I was ignorant of my mother, of my father, of the world, and of myself also.  I didn't know language, I didn't know numbers.  All of us start off with ignorance.  Ignorance is one thing you don't buy from anywhere, that one thing is free.  Because each one starts with ignorance, then ignorance never begins.  If ignorance begins, what must be there before the ignorance can only be knowledge.  And if ignorance can come and displace knowledge, then there would be no fun in knowing -- because today you know, then going to sleep, tomorrow you find that you are again ignorant.  But it is not like this.

 

We only find ignorance goes in the wake of knowledge.  Once knowledge is there, ignorance never stages a come back.  You may forget a fact, but then, if you can forget it, I would say you never knew it to begin with, you could only repeat it for some time, that is all.  Memorizing is not knowing, even though what you know is always subject to your recall.  Well, it is our experience, ignorance only goes, never comes.  And we find ourselves totally ignorant when born.  One means of unadulterated ignorance -- that is exactly what the child was.  And then he opened his eyes and ears, began seeing colors and forms, and sounds he began picking up.  Slowly he learned simple words like `ma,' `pa.'  Then `sister,' `brother' -- these are bigger words.  And `brother-in-law' comes later.  And we go to school gathering knowledge with what efforts, my God.  And we learn that particular fact of one plus one making two.  It was a great achievement of my teacher to make me discover that.  Like this, I learned so much.  And with the help of my eyes and ears, with my mind based upon sensory data, I learn how to think, I learn cause-effect relationships in everything, including history.  Some fellow committed a blunder, and he's had it.  And similarly, whether it is geology or geography or any subject that I take, it gives me an intellectual discipline. 

 

This intellectual discipline is what is called education.  And the ability to think properly is its benefit so important in life.  And every form of knowledge that I gathered dispelled ignorance.  Because I am already ignorant, and ignorance and knowledge can't co-exist, like even light and darkness can't co-exist at the same place.  Where the candle flame is, there cannot be darkness.  Even the glow of a fire fly reveals itself to your eyes, it doesn't require another light.  So, knowledge and ignorance cannot co-exist.  And therefore in the wake of any form of knowledge, ignorance just disappears.  Like how you switch on the light, darkness disappears.  And this knowledge always happens through the operation of a certain valid means of knowledge.  In Sanskrit `pramanam.'  Prama means knowledge, pramanam means `prama karanam,' that which is instrumental in giving rise to knowledge, that is called `pamanam.'  There are sense organs and on the basis of sensory data, we build up our inferences and presumptions.  And that is how we gather knowledge.

           

I operated the means of knowledge to know physics, to know chemistry, to know geography, to know this, to know that.  To the extent I knew, I displaced ignorance.  What did any of us do to know about ourselves?  We are born ignorant of the world and about ourself, what we were.  To dispel the ignorance of the world of things, well, I did a lot of things, I learned a lot of things, I used a valid means of knowledge and thereby went on dispelling ignorance about atom, about cell, about this, about that.  And what did I do, what class did I take, in the university or elsewhere, to know myself?  I didn't do anything.  And, therefore, I continue to be ignorant of my nature, and struggle to be myself.  Really it is an unfortunate thing.

           

Logic tells me, if I am inadequate, I would be happy being inadequate.  But since I want to be adequate, never inadequate, then I must be adequate already.  So I will feel at home with myself only when I discover myself adequate.  So if it is my nature and I seek it, then I have disowned it due to ignorance.  Everyone is born ignorant, for which we did previous little to dispel that ignorance of ourself.  And ignorance doesn't go, except in the light of knowledge, and that knowledge is brought about only by a valid means of knowledge.  Concerning ourselves, we have not operated that means of knowing ourself, as witnessed by our ignorance being there.  We may have learned how to quiet our restless mind.  But a man who is restless and doesn't know, he is a restless idiot.  A man who is quiet and doesn't know, he is a quiet idiot.  There is not a lot of difference, idiot continues to be the idiot.

           

So not being a home with myself and thereby the world, this is the common human problem, self-ignorance is the cause of it, and so self-knowledge alone is the solution.  And the teaching which goes under the name `Vedanta' that you are getting exposed to, that teaching dispels this ignorance.

           

It is again clear when we ask ourselves a question `who am I?' the answer reveals self-ignorance.  If life can be defined as a series of experiences, moment to moment I gain experience, and these experiences constitute my life.  To every form of experience I bring out of myself a person who is related to the experience.  If I happen to meet an individual, a person, to that person I bring out of myself not the same me, always a relative `me.'  If the person I meet is my father, even as I think of him, I see him, I talk to him, I bring out of myself the son that I am.  But I switch the role the moment I think of my son, I am no more the son that I was when I thought of my father, but now I become the father to my son.  And again to different other individuals I relate myself as brother, as uncle, as cousin, as in-law, and again as employer or as employee, as friend, as foe, as acquaintance, or just a neutral person who doesn't know the other person. 

           

Now I am not the neutral person because I am a friend, too.  I can't call myself the friend because I am an enemy, too.  I am not an absolute uncle, much less an absolute son or absolute father.  I am not the father of all, I am the father only of my children.  If there is a father of all, we have happily placed him far enough away so that he won't bother us here.  So I can't dub myself as any one of these, because I become the others also.  Again, when I meet a given object, I am not the same person.  I bring out of myself the liker when I meet with a thing that is desirable.  And I bring out the disliker when I meet with a thing that is not desirable.  So I can't call myself the liker or the disliker.  Sometimes I become happy, sometimes I become unhappy.  Man tends, of course, to conclude about himself, saying that I am unhappy.  That doesn't mean that he won't laugh for a slap-stick joke.  So he can't conclude that I am happy, he can't conclude that I am sad.  He can't conclude that I am jealous because sometimes he is very accommodative and appreciative of the other person.  He's not that jealous, and he is jealous, too.  He's not all loving because he hates, too.  Therefore, who are you?

           

Well, "I am all this" -- you can't say, because either you should be or you are none of them.  To everyone and everything you can't at once be father, son, cousin, uncle, friend, foe, liker, disliker, and so on.  However, there is one thing that remains common in all these when you say, "I am father, I am son, I am cousin, I am uncle, I am friend, I am foe, I am liker, I am disliker, I am this, I am that` -- `I am' is common in all of them.  So all these relative persons keep changing, and none of them can be the absolute; however, there is a person who is absolute, who informs all these various fellows, who fills up the father, the son, the cousin, and so on, and that person is `I-I-I-I-I-I.'  That means all these are roles that I come to assume in a given set up.  If I look at myself from a standpoint I become a cousin, an uncle.  If I shift the standpoint, then I become different entirely. 

           

So who is the `I' who is from his own standpoint, stripped of all these various roles?  That `I' who fills up all these costumes and roles, who is that `I?'  There is no chance for me to know during the day, because during the day I keep on shifting my experiences and taking on different roles appropriately.  I can only know myself relatively then.  Again, in dream I only re-enact what I had gathered in the waking state.  There again, I know myself only relatively from the standpoint of the roles I take on, not absolutely, as each moment of experience in the dream brings out of myself the relative person.  And when I pass out, when I got to sleep, I again don't know myself absolutely, nor even relatively as a cousin or uncle, that also is gone.  In deep sleep what is there is one consistent `I don't know-w-w' -- that is exactly what sleep is.  In sleep I don't become enlightened about myself, that is why waking up I am as ignorant as I was when I went to sleep.  If sleeping makes you wiser, what we require is not universities, we require only bedrooms.  From this it is very clear that throughout the day I have no chance to know myself, these three states of experience alone constitute our day, and every day will only be these three states.  Furthermore, at no place will I have a chance to know myself, because wherever I am, I will be experiencing and only seeing myself relatively, whether it is in the Himalayas or wherever.

           

Now, it is nice for a man to assume a role as he does in a play. The actor retaining whatever knowledge he has got about himself as an individual free from the role he is to play, he then plays the role as a king or a beggar or what not.  And then when the time comes for the king or beggar to quit the scene, well, he will always quit.  Otherwise, suppose the actor thinks he is the king, he forgets himself, he will continue to strut about on the stage when the time has come to quit.  `Who is there to be commanding the king to leave,' he will roar.  And suppose he is playing the part of a beggar and loses himself in the very role, he will go about begging those fellows on stage and he will eg the people in the audience too; after all he is a beggar.  It is then that we say the fellow has gone mad.  He has got into the fixation of being a beggar and is not able to shake it off.  He identified so much with the role that he became the role itself.  Now, suppose every character in the play loses himself and takes the role as himself; there would be no more any drama there; it would be a mess.  Like that, in society what happens is there is no drama.  Even though Shakespeare said that the world is a stage, all men and women are players, I don't think it is such a stage.  Why?  Because everybody thinks that the very role is himself.  The role will not be myself, only when I know what I am centrally, the central `I,' the in-forming `I,' the filling up `I,' who assumes all these roles.  If that `I' is not known to me, then every role becomes `I,' naturally. 

           

Where is the question of playing a role?  The world may be a stage, men and women may be players, but they are lost players because none of them seems to remember the script.  Why?  Because the role becomes the person.  And for each one of the relative persons in life, there are a different set of problems.  The father has his problems, the son his, and the cousin and uncle each have their own problems, so too the officer, and so on.  And if every role is myself, then I will have only problems.  solve the father's problems and the son in you is up with his problems.  Solve them and so many other fellows are inside, all of them have got problems, each one demanding them to be solved.  So it is not that I get into one fixation, like the actor who thought he was a beggar.  Then there is no problem, at least we can understand, he is mad and we can accommodate him.  But here we go on switching the roles, now father, now son.  Each one is an indeterminable guy, a confusion to himself, and naturally a confusion for others.  He is impossible to relate with properly.  And unfortunately the other person is equally the same. thing.  And they want to relate themselves to each other, think of it.  This is what we call society, a mess.  and home is a mini-mess.  In fact, every person in the society is contributing his mite of confusion to the general confusion that obtains in the society.  All because of a simple thing -- I know not myself.

           

So a re-shuffling of our ideas about ourselves is so important, because we can blame the world, saying this world makes me unhappy.  Hence there is a case for self-enquiry and self-knowledge.  The self that I have to know is something that is already there in all forms of experience, yet I know it not.  To assume a role is not a mistake.  However, to lose myself to the role is a capital mistake.

           

Now, we need to discover the actor stripped of his role.  Suppose I say the actor is beyond this costume, this role.  That doesn't mean that besides the king there is another fellow.  No, it is the same fellow who appears as the king; he is indeed the actor.  Let that actor appear in any role; if I thoroughly know him, if I am a devout fan of his, I will definitely never miss him, no matter what the role.  Similarly, if I thoroughly know myself, the self who is there in all these roles, do I have to `dive deep and discover him' as you read in all these spiritual books?  Do I have to wait some time before I can discover myself?  Or do I have to go here or there, or do this or that, in order to discover myself?  This is all what you read in these books.

           

Anyway, I am there very much in all these roles.  If I know myself centrally, then I can play the role nicely and make the play, make my life, a comedy.  Even if it is a tragedy, no problem; after all, it is a play.  Not that we are falsifying life.  In fact, we are doing just the opposite.  If I know myself as I am, then I give reality to all these roles, I fill each one of them up.  And in doing so I will value life as it should be valued.  When I don't commit a mistake about myself, then I can relate myself properly to the world, and the world will not be vitiated, will not be perverted, by my own error about myself.  So if each of these roles are relative persons, we should take them as relative persons, not the absolute, not as `I,' the `I' who fills up each one.  So I give reality to life, and that much reality it has, as even a good actor gives reality and beauty to the role he plays.

           

So the fact is I am there very much in each of the roles, because `I-I-I' is common in all of them.  It is not for want of experience that I don't know myself.  So if I still miss that in-forming `I,' it is for want of knowledge, nothing else.  There is a difference between experience and knowledge.  You can experience an object and still not know what it is.  We all experience the sun rising, but in fact the sun doesn't rise, rather the earth rotates.  A fellow may be standing right in front of me talking with me for half an hour and still I may not know that he is my childhood best friend.  Yet people write that you must experience the divine self and so on.  I say, you experience yourself all the time, you can't but experience yourself because you are there in every blessed experience, as the counterpart of experience, as the experiencer.

           

If I am not there as a conscious being, where is the hell of an experience?  So it is not want of experience that makes me so ignorant of myself, that makes me a seeker after myself.  It is want of knowledge of myself who is so much experienced, who is masquerading all the time with opinions about himself all false.  And that creates problems.  So how will I ever know myself?  Therefore I require a definite means of knowledge other than the ones that I have.  If `I' can stand outside there, outside playing hide and seek, then definitely one day I will tumble upon that `I.'  But then this `I' which I seek cannot stand apart from me, for the one who seeks is indeed the one who is the sought, like in the story of the tenth man.

           

Ten young fellows who were students of a teacher were on a pilgrimage.  They crossed a river, and reaching the other bank, the leader counted all the fellows to find out whether they had all come safely, and he found that there were only nine.  One, two, three . . . nine -- the tenth fellow is missing!  He got alarmed, and then he counted again, still finding only nine.  He grouped them differently, eight plus one, seven plus two, and so on, every time nine-nine-nine.  And he got each of the other fellows to count, and they also came up with only nine.  A real bunch of fellows, I tell you.  And getting more alarmed, they all began searching for the tenth man.  "Where has he gone?" they cried.  They searched up and down this bank and the other one, too, at least hoping to find the washed up body somewhere.  But the tenth man was no where to be found.  They can't go ahead on their journey, nor can they return to face their teacher.  The fellows were sad, and in tears they sat.

           

It was at this time another man happened upon them.  He saw them all so sad.  A few minutes ago they were all happy on the other bank about to cross.  And he said, "I say, what is the problem?  Why are you all so sad?"  And the leader, with tears in his eyes, told him of their plight.  He said, "It was my responsibility to take care of these boys.  And coming to this river, we ten swam across, knowing full well that all of us knew swimming.  And reaching here, we are only nine.  The tenth man is missing.  I can't even recall which one of us he was, we don't seem to remember what he looked like at all.  I don't know what to do."  Then the man saw all these boys and said, "Did you say you were ten?"  "Yes, sir."  "Then do you say that you are nine now?"  "Yes, sir, we are nine."  And the man smiled.  Lord Krishna in the Gita, before he teaches Arjuna, he smiled.  It is that same smile here also.  When Arjuna presented his problem that I am sad and all that, Krishna smiled.  This man smiled and said, "You just take my words for whatever they are worth, understand that `the tenth man is'."  "Can you produce him?"  "Yes, right here now, just listen, okay?"  On hearing these words, the boys stopped their pouting, no more sad, a new hope sprung up which was not there before.  Previously they thought the tenth man was lost, was not there at all -- they were atheists.  Now, upon hearing this man's words that `the tenth man is,' they became theists, believers in the existence of the tenth man.  The man had nothing to gain by lying to them, so not finding any reason to doubt him, they accepted his words.  Now, an eagerness and attentiveness of mind was there on the part of the boys to listen to what this man had to say, for he said that he could produce the tenth man right here now.  And then the man said, "Hey, come on, count now."  The leader was reluctant to count.  He had counted so many times, every time increasing his blood pressure.  But then there may be a reason for this man to ask me to count, he though, so he just counts.  This is called `Sraddha' in Sanskrit, a faith in the man's words pending discovery on my part.  Well, he counted, "one, two, three . . . nine -- where is the tenth man?"  And the man said, "You are the tenth man, tat-tvam-asi that thou art."  The leader had failed to count himself.

           

When he was told this simple sentence, `you are the tenth man,' what happened to the fellow?  The sentence brought about knowledge.  What kind of knowledge?  Was it still just a belief in the existence of the tenth man?  Or was it a hope that after so many years of practicing some technique that he will discover the tenth man?  Or was it a promise that after this life yea shall go to the heavens and discover the tenth man?  No, it was direct, immediate knowledge.  The man didn't string him along with beliefs and hopes and promises which would never be able to produce the tenth man anyway.  The fellow didn't count himself.  And, missing himself, he went on searching for what was himself alone, all along becoming more and more sad.  So when he was told `you are the tenth man,' this sentence, this teaching, brought about knowledge.  And did this knowledge put an end to his searching and sorrowing?  Immediately.  It may have taken a while for his blood pressure to come down, but the relief was immediate.  The teaching was not a theory, it was not a bunch of parables to give him solace, there was nothing to practice, no effort to put forth and in time discover what he was seeking.  Is there a practice necessary for being the tenth man?  If that is so, then the sentence would have been, "Yea shall discover the tenth man . . ."  When?  ". . . When you live on this particular diet for forty-one days, on the forty-second day, yea shall discover the tenth man."  This is trip number one.  And faithfully living on sprouts and leaves, on the forty-second day he didn't discover the tenth man.  And he went back to the guru, the teacher, and said, "O, master, I didn't discover the tenth man."  "Did you follow my advice?"  "Yes, religiously."  "Then why didn't you discover the tenth man?"  "That is what I'm asking, why didn't I discover the tenth man?"  "There must be something wrong, did you take with salt or without salt?"  "You didn't tell me about that; I took with salt."  "Oh, that is it.  You must give up salt, I tell you.  Another forty-one days without salt."  And again, after another saltless forty-one days, another less and another less.  All less, the less he lived all right.  Until he became thinner and very interesting.  Despite all that the tenth man was still missing.  And he thought this guy is useless, so he switched to a new guru, because there are always new ones around.  And this guru was a tickling guru.  He said, "You shall discover the tenth man right now."  He gave a knock here, there was a shock, and therefore there was a `thrumm.'  And he said, "Did you see something?"  "Yes, something going up."  "Ah, it has reached a point now, the first chakra.  And when it reaches the top you will discover the tenth man."  This is trip number two.  He did this for a long time; nothing happened.  Some kick he got out of it may be, but still he remained ignorant of the tenth man.  And the fellow in the process picks up a new complex, a new guilt.  Because we each time give the benefit of doubt to the guru, as he has got a big following and what not, we think that perhaps the guru is right, I am not qualified, another problem.  Previously he was sad missing the tenth man, now he is still sad missing the tenth man, and he has also lost hopes of finding him, as he considers himself incapable, not qualified.

           

And again he goes to another fellow who says, "I have got a simple technique; you follow this technique and you have to pay only this much -- student discount -- that's enough.  It is very simple; everybody can easily follow.  You go on repeating, `Aing-Aing-Aing'."  And he asked, "What is the meaning of `Aing?'"  "It is a meaningless sound."  "Oh, then why should I be `Aing,' why not `Ang'?"  "No, no, we have to choose a proper meaningless sound for you."  Think of it!  We fall for all this nonsense, I tell you.  We buy any blessed thing; only we require someone to come and tell, that's all.  Anybody can sell anything.  And possibly this fellow may get something out of it.  He was told how to relax the body, and that relaxation, perhaps it helped.  It will work all right.  But it will not work to discover the tenth man.  All these techniques may be useful, everything is useful including a broken time-piece.  A broken time-piece always gives you the  right time twice a day.  A useful thing is not what you are really searching for.  We get confused about all this just because we don't know what is the problem, understand?  All these trips that go under the name of religion, of spiritual seeking, they have nothing to do with the Indian tradition of teaching.  None of this. 

           

And suppose another fellow says, "Yea shall discover the tenth man, not on this earth."  Where?  "When you go to the heavens, there you will find who you are seeking."  When I go to the heavens and look for the tenth man all over, I don't find him.  Perhaps in hell the tenth man is, I don't find him.  You won't find him because you are the tenth man.  As long as you search, you are denying yourself.  And you can't but search because you want to discover the tenth man to make yourself complete as a pack.  Because as nine you are incomplete, yet to be complete as a pack.  Search will not produce the tenth man, and you can't remain without searching.  It is at this helpless state, the teaching works.  If I am what I am seeking, what is required is only a clean introduction to myself by a person who knows me, who knows himself.  Because he also uses the word `I' like the word `I.'  So if he clearly sees the meaning of the word `I,' then he can make me also see.  If he himself is confused, then he can only confuse me more.

           

So who am I?  An enquiry is indeed warranted.  A simple question, who am I, ko'ham in Sanskrit.  The answer should begin like this.  I am here in this world, as an individual who is a participant in this creation, and who is the one that goes about seeing different people, different things in this world.  I am there very much, whether I am an uncle or a cousin.  Now this `I' I want to know.  The world that I come across, that I experience, can be called an object.  The whole world is but an object.  `Object' means what can be objectified, whatever can be known.  And `I' can be called as the subject.  In English we have this simple sentence, where there is a subject, an object, and a verb.  Suppose I say, "I see the sun."  Who is the subject?  `I.'  Who is the object?  `Sun.'  `See' is the verb.  Now, what I know is an object, whether I know visually or through my ears, nose, tongue, or sense of touch, or whether I reason things out and know.  Viditam-Aviditam, what is known, what is not yet known -- all of them are subject to be known.  All that you are going to discover in the future about the atom, about the gene, about the galaxy, about the heavens even -- when I come to discover them, all are going to be again the known.  To all these objects I become the subject.  I use the pronoun `this' for anything that is an object.  And I don't use the word `I' for any of them.  So we say, `this sun,' `this moon,' `this star,' `these clouds,' `this earth,' `this mountain,' `this tree,' `this bird,' `this woman,' `this child' -- the woman may be my wife or the child may be my son.  But we don't say, `I sun,' `I moon,' `I wife,' `I son' -- these are not there.  In none of them I have `I-I-I-.'  In every one of them I have `this-this-this.'  Even a thing, a remote thing, which is called `that' is also subject to become `this.'  You only need shift the point of reference and that star becomes a part of this galaxy.  The objects differ, the subject remains the same.  The known keep on changing, but I don't change.  The one who saw the sun today is the one who sees the moon tonight.  The I is always the same.  The one who slept is the one who dreamt.  The one who dreamt and slept is the one who is awake.  I slept, I dreamt, I am awake -- that I is always the same.  And things that I come to know, they are, of course, other than myself.  This world is not me, everything is other than myself -- this much knowledge everyone has got, even a bug has got.  Therefore, everything that is known that can be known, the entire world, is an object which falls under the word `this,' is within the scope of the word `this.'  Whereas `I' is always the subject, never an object, never a `this.'  Thus we can bring the entire creation under two words -- `I' Aham in Sanskrit, and `this' Idam in Sanskrit.  In other words, Asmat-pratyaya and yushmat-pratyaya in Sanskrit, that which is the meaning of the word `I' the first person pronoun, and that which is the meaning of the word `you' the second person pronoun, including `this' the third person as well.  The meaning of the word `this' is the world, and the meaning of the word `I' is myself.  Thus myself related to the world.

           

Now, who am I?  Well, I am not any of this.  Where I end, the world begins.  And I end where my nose ends.  So beyond the extremities of my body, the world is.  Beyond the finger I don't exist.  Wherever the anatomy happens, there I am.  Therefore if a bullet passes between the fingers I don't bother because here I don't exist.  But if the bullet just grazes the finer, `I am hit.'  From the sole of my feet to the top of my head, I am, there very much.  Why?  Because the body is tall, I am tall.  Body is short, I am short.  Like that, fat I am fat, white I am white, black I am black, hungry I am hungry, thirsty I am thirsty.  The body sits I sit.  Body goes I go, it is not that I send the body and then say I will come later.  The body is not luggage that you can send air-freight in advance.  And it is the same body that my son points to and says `father,' that my father points to and says `son.'  Like this, I am the same body by whatever name you give it -- `brother,' `uncle,' `cousin,' `husband.'  Only from the standpoint of the other guy, I am brother, uncle, cousin, and so on.

           

In this way, this guy answers the question `who am I?' by telling `I am the physical body.'  Whatever happens to the body happens to me.  Daha jate sham jatah, daha pusta aham pushtah, daha kraye aham krayah, daha nashte sham nashtan -- when the body is born, I am born; when the body is healthy, I am healthy; when the body is weak, I am weak; when the body is gone, I am a goner.  When the body is reduced to ashes, this fellow seems to have been reduced to ashes, because he doesn't seem to come back at all.  And therefore the body, the daha, is indeed myself.  So as this body is enjoying only certain attributes, it will not be enjoying the attributes of, say, a dog's scent, or a bat's radar, the wings of a bird, or the sting of a Mohammed Ali -- all those attributes you wished you had.  If you are a man, you are not a woman.  If you are a woman, you are not a man.  Each physical body is limited by the other physical bodies.  so if I am the physical body, I am limited, limited by my peculiar nature Vastu-paricceda object-wise limitation in Sanskrit.

           

And not only that, limited by space and time, too, Dasa-pericceda and Kala-paricchada in Sanskrit.  You only stand here, not anywhere else.  And going somewhere else you miss being here or elsewhere, too.  Furthermore, there was a time when you were not, there will be a time when you won't be.  You wish you were one of those pioneers who came west having a lot of adventures, or you wish you could see the world how it will be in the year 2100 or 2500.  So the past you can't relive, and the future you can never live now.  You are stuck up here, today, if you are the physical body.  "Which body?"  if I ask him, he will have to say, "This body," pointing to his body.  But how do you use the word `this' for the body if the body is really the `I,' is really you?  If you, the I, are the body, then the body should be the subject, never the object.  You should not know the body.  He replies, "No, no, I know this body much more intimately than anyone else.  If there is a back pain, nobody knows not even the doctors, only I know."  If it is known to you, how do you say that `I am the body?'  The known son you are not, this son you are not, this man you are not, that man you are not.  If your physical body is a `this' body which is available for your objectification, then how come you say "I am the body?"  He replies "Because body is tall, I am tall."  But that building there, if you stand before it, on seeing that you do say, "I am tall?"  You only say that I am small, that is tall.  So what you see is tall.  And `the body is tall' -- do you see or not?  "Yes, I see."  If you see, how do you say I am tall?  Seeing fire you don't become hot.  The knower of a given thing doesn't enjoy the attributes of that given thing.  "Well, I only told you from the standpoint of the physical body I am tall."

           

Then who are you?  "Oh, I am different from this body."  Who is that?  "Well, I see this body.  So I am the knower of this body."  Who is that knower, that seer?  "Well, ah, it must be my sense organs."  What are the sense organs?  "The eyes, ears, nose, tongue, the sense of taste, and skin, the sense of touch -- these are the five sense organs."  They see all the objects.  They form the I.  And again with these sense organs I see my body, I hear my body, I smell my body; unfortunately, I can taste my body, and I can feel my body.  This body is an object, the senses organs are the subject, myself.  That is why, when the eyes are blind, I am blind; the ears are deaf, I am deaf.  Nobody says, `the eyes are blind, but I am okay.'  Because I have this level of experience that `I am blind,' with this simple logic it is clear to me that `I' is there in the eyes, etc., very much."  Now I ask you, do you know that you are blind?  "Yes."  Do you say that your eyes don't see?  Do you say that your eyes don't see?  "Yes, eyes don't see."  How do you know?  "Because I see."  What do you see?  "That I don't see, I see.  I see that the ears don't hear.  I see that the nose is blocked up.  I see that the tongue is all furred.  I see that my skin is numb."  All these you see?  "Yes, I see.  I am the one who sees them."

           

Who are you then?  "Well, if you keep asking, I am not the sense organs; they are only instruments I make use of; only from the standpoint of the eyes, I am blind.  I am the knower of this body and these sense organs.  I must be the mind.  Yes, I am the mind."  What do you mean by the mind?  "Don't you know?  The thinking mind."  The thinking mind?  Do you say you are the thought?  "Yes, I am the thought.  Because whatever the thought condition, that is exactly what I am.  The thought pattern is restless; I am restless.  The mind is jealous; I am jealous.  The mind is hateful; I am hateful.  The mind is sluggish; I am sluggish.  The mind is foolish; I am foolish.  Whatever is the mind, that I am.  How else could I say that I am restless and so on?"  Do you know that your mind is restless?  "Yes, it is restless.  A thousand people can come and try to tell me I am all peace, all joy, but I will say that the fellows have all gone crazy en masse, something wrong in the local water.  I see this mind very clearly.  No one else sees it, only me.  They can only infer about the condition of my mind.  But my mind is definitely known to me."  If this mind is known to you, then how do you say, `I am the mind?'  All that is known is an object to you.  And you are the subject.  Then how can you be this known mind?  And if you are a given thought, that thought is gone, you are gone for good.  "No, no, I am not the thought.  I am the one who knows all the thoughts; I am the knower.   am the one who looks at this mind as thought it is on a stage.  From somewhere, I don't know from which balcony, I look at this dancing mind."  But you said `the mind is restless; I am restless.'  "Well, I told you from the standpoint of the mind, I am restless.  But, of course, from my own standpoint I can't be restless, just as I can't be blind when I see the blindness of the eyes, and I can't be tall and what not when I am the seer of what is tall.  The mind is restless, like even a pool of water which is disturbed, not that seeing the pool of water I am disturbed."

           

Then, who are you?  "Well, ah, it's getting late now.  I've got to go.  Sorry."  Well, you can say anything, you can say I am Mr. so-and-so, I am a doctor, and so on.  That also is meaningless because it is only a name, a title.  The name is not the knower.  If the name is the knower, all you require is a name, hang the name and titles and consult the tag.  Dr. so-and-so with a big tail of abbreviated titles, hang that sign and people would come and consult the name.  So the name is not consulted.  The Nami, the fellow who has that name, he is consulted.  Change your name, and you will be just the same.  You will not be otherwise, you will continue to be the same wise.  Therefore I am the one who fills up the name.  Each name you have got is only for convenience sake, so that we can call you.  You may be called by a lot of different names, many you'd better not know; but you are the same guy.  And all that you know -- medicine, law, physics, carpentry, whatever -- these are all intellectual accomplishments which are known to you.  All that you know, you know.  And your memories also are something that you are aware of, you can recall them.  So you can't say `I am memories, a bundle of history.'

           

Even your ignorance, I tell you, you are aware of.  You know what you don't know.  Do you know Sanskrit?  Well, you don't have to consult anyone else to find out if you know or not.  You know very well yourself that you don't know Sanskrit, or Russian, or what the far galaxies are like -- these are all very well known to you that you know them not.  Therefore, you are aware of your memories, your knowledge, the conditions of your mind, your sense organs, your physical body and its condition, and you are aware of the entire world.  Even the heavens you will be aware of, when you go there.  If God is sitting there, you will see God.  He will again be another object, seen over the shoulders and heads of countless millions of on-lookers who had all done their good deeds to get their ticket to heaven.  Even if you get near him by slipping underneath all those fellows, seeing God up close, a beautiful sight no doubt -- but as sightseeing goes -- you get bored with it.  You turn around to look at what else is there in the heavens.  And seeing all that, then what?

           

Well, check out hell.  That should be interesting, too.  And once hell is seen, then what?  Well, you'll want to go back to earth, naturally, because here everything is eternally the same and there on earth things keep changing, lots of action is going on.  That is human nature.  So if God is an object sitting there, whether he is or not, we will talk about later, he will not be me.  And I will remain just the same.  I will not become God, nor will I take on the godliness of God, if he is the object and I am the subject, other than him.  In fact, it would only make me realize how miserable I am if I have to be seeing how great God is.  Gheta-Drshta ghata-bhinnah. 

           

The seer of a pot, any object, is distinct from the pot.  The knower of anything is distinct, other than, the thing known.  And any thing that is seen, is known, is capable of being dismissed -- you need only shift your vision or go to sleep, and the object is dismissed by you.  Like that, when I am awake, all the objects of the world are seen by me, but slipping into dream, all those objects seen while awake become like a dream for me who is dreaming.  I dismiss the waking objects, and the dream objects which I am seeing now I take as being very real.  And again slipping into deep sleep, all those objects of waking and dreaming both are dismissed; I see nothing while asleep.  Again waking up that ignorance in sleep is gone; I again see all these objects.  So all objects, whether the objects are out there, my relationships, my body, my sense organs, my mind, my memories, my knowledge, my ignorance -- all of them come and go.  They dismiss themselves.  But I, the subject, remain the same.

           

Who am I?  Well, I am the subject, the knower, the one who is aware of all these.  So, with reference to all these objects that I am aware of, I am the awarer.  Like even with reference to walking, I am the walker, and so on.  But we don't want to know the I from any other standpoint now than from itself alone.  We already know ourselves from the standpoint of all these objects -- our relationships, our body, our mind, etc.  But these are not exactly me, they are only relative persons.  I want to know myself, who I am, who fills up each of these.  From his own standpoint, who is the I?  Well, who is the awarer if you ask, the answer can only be the content of the awarer.  The content of the awarer is what?  It is but awareness.  The abstract of the awarer is awareness, that which allows the awarer to be aware of everything else.  And since awareness is that by which everything is known, it cannot itself become an object.  Therefore it ever remains the subject, the I.

           

Then who are you?  Well, you have to say `I am awareness.'  Who is she?  She will have to say `I am awareness.'  Ask any other person who are you?  The answer should be `I am awareness.'  Therefore, each one is awareness; that doesn't seem to differ.  All are awareness in fact.  So we can say there is perhaps number for awareness, but definitely no variety in awareness.  Like in a classroom there are a number of chairs, but all the chairs are just alike.  There is no supra-infra-awareness; they are all just `awareness' in plain simple English.  `Supra-' and `infra-' are terms of reference only; so with reference to one person's intellectual accomplishments as compared to another's, we say he is more aware and what not.  But intellectual accomplishments and all that we have dismissed as not being I awareness, simple from its own standpoint.  So I am awareness, he is awareness, even God, I tell you, if he were asked, he would say `I am aware of my creation, I am awareness.'  You are awareness, I am awareness -- but of course I am not you, so perhaps there is number for awareness, but variety is eliminated.  Pockets of awareness I suppose are there.

           

Now tell me, if you are awareness, what is the height of awareness?  You are awareness because of which you are aware of your ignorance, your knowledge, your emotions, your sense organs, your body, that body, and the distance between the two -- that awareness is `I.'  That awareness is always the subject, never an object subject to your objectification.  So that awareness, tell me, what is the height of it?  Is there a height?  The awareness which is aware of the body, has it got a height?  It has no physical form, therefore no height.  You are awareness, no height, no width.  That awareness is formless, shapeless.  If it is formless, has it got a front?  A back?  Has it got a left?  A right?  An above?  A below?  You are awareness, now listen, between this awareness and the ignorance that you are aware of, what is the distance? 

           

Is there a distance?  No distance.  Between awareness and knowledge that you have got, what is the distance?  Can you knowledge be away from awareness and still be known?  Between awareness and an emotion which you are aware of, what is the distance?  Is it away from your awareness?  No; otherwise you won't see the emotion at all.  Between awareness and the body, your body, what is the distance?  I am awareness, shapeless formless awareness, in awareness is this body; between awareness and this body, what is the distance?  No distance.  Between awareness and space that you are aware of, what is the distance?  Is there a distance?  My God, there can't be any distance.  Space is that which accommodates all, the whole creation.  So if between awareness and space there is no distance, between awareness and the moon which is in space, is there a distance?  There is no distance.  Between awareness and the stars above, light years away, what is the distance?  The stars are known, they fall within my awareness.  Therefore, there cannot be any distance.  If there is a heaven in space somewhere, what is the distance between awareness and the heaven?  You need not have seen it, heaven you all know what it is very much.  There is no distance.  If there is a hell, no distance.  Your awareness is something in which space is, and space is something in which everything is, all objects are.  Therefore you are not away from space, you are not away from the sun, the moon, the stars, any blessed thing in creation.

           

You can relax now.  I asked you all these questions because I don't want to preach to you.  I don't want to condition you, saying the self is like this and like that.  You should see the fact very clearly.  You are awareness, that awareness I address and ask `what is your height?'  `What is the distance between you and anything in creation?'  You, as awareness, free from any standpoints plain and simple, must surely know the answer.  When you see the fact very clearly, then that is communication, that is teaching.  Preaching is not teaching.  And teaching is exactly what is necessary, as I find I don't know myself what I am, and I have got to find out.  Since you alone are the topic here, you have got to see the fact.  We are not talking about some Atma, some self, somewhere, who is this or that.  Awareness is not a third person, sitting somewhere.  We are talking about you.  Like even looking in a mirror, you should see yourself very clearly.  That is teaching.  Anything else is only a conditioning, it won't help at all.  These words are meant to unfold your very nature before you; if at first you don't see, look again.

           

Now, for a change, what is the distance between space and the moon?  There is no distance, for space is around the moon, space is in and through the moon, the moon is in space, the very dimension of the moon is in space, and therefore there is no distance between space and moon, a point in space.  Between space and this body there is no distance whatsoever.  Between space and any body in space there is no distance.  Why?  Because space is all-pervasive.  Now, suppose I point to you.  My index finger, when I say `you are sitting,' even though it stops here at the finger nail, still it can travel to your physical body and point it out.  When I say `you seem to be hungry,' well, I mean your tummy.   When I say `you seem to be restless,' I mean your mind.  When I say `you seem to understand,' I mean your intellect.  When I say `you seem to be ignorant of this fact,' I mean your ignorance.  When I say `you are awareness,' I mean you, as you are, simple awareness.  That you're awareness, what is the distance between you and the moon?  If you are awareness, in your awareness is space, in space is the moon; then that moon is not away from awareness.  The moon that I think of ,that I see, is in awareness, is in space.  And there is no distance whatsoever.  And therefore I am awareness in which the moon exists, the sun exists, the stars exist; all things that may come to exist, all exist in my awareness.

           

So, tell me, how many awarenesses -- if I can stretch the English language a bit -- are there?  I am awareness in which all things exist, you are awareness in which all things exist.  The distinguishing factors like knowledge, like ignorance, and emotions and bodies -- all of them exist in awareness.  I am awareness at once formless, shapeless, limitless; can there be any number for that awareness?  No, in limitless, I awareness alone is the whole creation; there can't be two limitlessnesses.  There is only one limitless awareness.  That awareness I don't objectify because it is myself.  I objectify things, you objectify things -- but behind what you and I objectify is awareness, and that nobody objectifies.  That is why I am always the subject, and you yourself are always the subject.  I can objectify your body or infer and know about your mind, but I cannot objectify your awareness.  Try?  You can objectify anything but awareness.  So, awareness is neither various nor is it many.  Therefore there is only one I.  The I is something at once limitless awareness.

           

Now, tell me, are you in the world or is the world in you?  I awareness is not in the world as someone to be pushed and pulled around.  I can't be pushed or pulled, as I am awareness in which space is, the world is, in which all the planets and stars spin.  There is no place I can be pushed into, as I am everywhere.  And nobody can manipulate me, because there is no one, nothing, apart from me, who can come and manipulate the awareness I am.  Therefore I am not a creature in the world.  I am not one of those incidents in creation.  Awareness can be neither inside this world, nor outside this world.  If it is outside the world, you will never know the world.  If it is inside the world, then it would be another object in the creation, something else would be the subject.  That `something else' could only be awareness.  Awareness alone is the subject, it is that awareness I am talking about here.  So if you say `I awareness is in the world,' I would say you are only talking about some notional `I,' a relative person, which you can objectify -- not yourself, the subject who is but awareness.  Therefore, I am neither inside this world nor outside this world.  In fact, I would say, awareness is exactly the world.  Awareness is the truth, the content, of the world, I would say.  Just as the `I' fills up the roles as father, as son, as the body, as the mind, as the intellect, as the known, as the not-yet-known.  I am independent of the world, the world is dependent upon me.  Because awareness is -- the world is, you dismiss the world as we do in deep sleep, still awareness is, aware of the absence of the world in sleep.  We dismiss space in deep sleep, `where we are' that concept is not there in sleep.  Moreover, time also is dismissed in deep sleep.  Time and space always go together.  If time can be indicated by a vertical line and space by a horizontal line, then this cross of time and space is the very creation which weighs very heavily on us.  In deep sleep both time and space is dismissed by us.  Therefore, space is -- I am, space is not still I am.  And again time is -- I am, time is not still I am.  I am not a point in space, nor am I an event in time.  I am without birth and without death.  Why?  The birth of anything is, in fact, the last moment of its prior non-existence.  And death is the first moment of its posterior non-existence.  Between these two points in time is the existence of the object.  Now, for anything to say that a thing is born, he must necessarily be knowing the birth of the thing.  The prior non-existence of the thing must be known to him, then the next moment when the thing is, that fellow can say it had a birth.  So, too, for the death of a thing, he must know the posterior non-existence of the thing.  So he must survive the firth of the object and the death of the object, then he can definitely say `this thing is having a birth and a death.'  Now, for anyone to claim that awareness is having a birth and death, that fellow must necessarily be knowing the prior non-existence of awareness and the posterior non-existence of awareness.  But if he is that awareness, then he would not be there to know his prior non-existence or his posterior non-existence.  So he cannot claim there is a birth or death for himself.  Nor can he objectify any other awareness to see if it has a beginning or end, as awareness is one, it is the subject, never the object.  No, nobody can intelligently claim that birth and death is there for I awareness.  And that is because, as even I am not in space but space is in me, so too I am not in time but time is in me.  This is why I can dismiss both time and space when I go to sleep, yet I remain as the eternal witness.

           

Time, whether chronological or subjective, is an object of my knowledge.  chronological time is the time physics deals with, and it is the measure of the rotation of the earth around its axis, the moment-to-moment ticking of things in creation.  Subjective time is the time psychology deals with, and it is that which the mind makes out of these seconds and minutes.  Just stand on a hot plate for one full minute with a stop watch, and what exactly is subjective time as compared to chronological time will become very clear to you.  Then you will find how the stop watch has stopped moving.  Both times are as well objects of my knowledge, they are but an aspect of creation.  I awareness am not born in time, nor am I going to die in time.  Therefore, I am beyond time, not bound by time.  I am timeless, in Sanskrit Nitya eternal.  Eternity is not, as we generally take it, a continuity in time.  Eternity is just a word with reference to time, but itself has nothing to do with time.  Eternity is not in time.  Time is an object of your knowledge and experience, but eternity cannot be an object of experience.  How is that?  I tell you, what is time?  Time is, you will say, past-present-future, that concept is exactly what is called `time.'  Listen now, when the past existed, what was there?  When the past existed, what was there was the present.  The entire past, when it existed, was only the present.  Yesterday, when it obtained, was only today.  And when Shakespeare got up in Stratford on the banks of Avon, it was only today.  With reference to the time you are living, that day he got u is looked upon as a yesterday long, long ago.  But itself, it was only a today.  Shakespeare only would have said, `good morning.'  And getting up yesterday, you said, `good morning.'  And getting up tomorrow, what will it be?  Tomorrow getting up, it will be a `good morning.'  So all yesterdays were only todays, and all tomorrows will only be todays.  In fact, `today' is too big a word, because today itself has got twenty-four hours.  Past hour and future hour are there, so past hour when it obtained was only this hour, and the future hour will only be this hour.  And like that, the time can be further divided and divided into minutes, seconds, micro-seconds, milli-micro-seconds, and on and on.  And therefore, if you ask what is time, the time is in fact only the present.  The present is the soul of time.  And the present you can't say is any length of time because any length is always further divisible with a past and a future.  Therefore, when length of time is not there at all, that alone can be the present.  And when length of time disappears, time itself disappears, and what obtains then is only the present.  And that present is, in fact, the presence which you awareness is.  That awareness is not bound by time.  Whereas, time is dependent upon awareness.  Awareness is the basis, the soul or content of time itself.  Without awareness, time -- the concept itself -- is not there at all.

           

Understand, that awareness is called `eternal,' and it has nothing to do with time.  It is not an object of our experience.  In Sanskrit it is said as Sat.  Sat is existence, that which is not negated at any time.  And Chit means awareness, consciousness.  Sat-Chit is I.  That I is space-wise limitless, since it is formless, and time-wise limitless, since it is the very content of time.  If that is so, then do I lack anything?  I am that which accommodates the entire creation, in awareness is space and time, and in time and space is exactly this entire universe.  Can you imagine anything that is beyond the scope of time and space?  So, do I lack anything?  No, I lack nothing.  Awareness is fullness, in Sanskrit it is called Anantam or Anandam; both mean the same thing.  I am fullness, completeness, and that fullness is bliss Anandam.  So I am Sat-Chit-Ananda.  You must have heard this word before.  Now you know what it means.  Before it was just a word for you; now it has a meaning.  See what the difference is between teaching and preaching!

           

And that awareness is, in fact, self-existent, self-shining.  It doesn't require anything or anyone else to come and light it up, to make it appear.  It is self-shining and everything else shines after.  The objects out there shine because they reflect the light of the sun, because the sun shines.  The sun shines because my eyes see, my eyes shine.  If my eyes don't see, don't shine, then the sun is no longer bright, no more the sun.  And my eyes shine because there is a mind behind them, because the mind shines.  That is why you may be looking at something but don't see it, because the mind was thinking of something else, the mind was elsewhere.  If my mind is not there, the eyes are no more eyes.  And my mind shines because I awareness shines.  When I see an object there, the mind assumes the very form of the object.  That form I see, because the mind shines in the light of awareness.  And I shine because I can't but shine, as I am awareness, that because of which all objects are seen.  So the objects shine because the sun shines, the sun shines because my eyes shine, my eyes shine because my mind shines, my mind shines because I shine, and I shine because I can't but shine.  Therefore everything shines after me.

           

Moreover, without an appearance of a thing we cannot impute existence to it, whatever be the nature of the existence -- imaginary or empirical.  The tree is -- we say, because it is seen by you by me.  The dream object is, because it is seen there in the dream.  However, a rabbit's horn we say is not there at all because it is no where seen.  And without awareness, this universe of objects would not appear.  So because I shine, everything else shines.  And because the universe shines in the presence of awareness, thus I say the universe is.  Therefore, everything in the universe is-is-is, because I am.  And I exist because I am, and I am timeless.  Never was there a time I was not; never will there be a time I won't be.

           

Therefore, I am called Sat-Chit-Ananda, existence - awareness - fullness.  I am self-shining, self-existent.  And it is this self that I am seeking all the time.  In life we seek only three things, mainly.  Secondarily, we seek a million things.  But mainly, primarily, we seek only three things.  Firstly, `each one wants to live always a day more; nobody wants to die today.'  Everybody wants to die tomorrow, because he knows that getting up tomorrow it will always be today, and therefore the next day he is prepared to die.  Getting up the next day, it is again today, and like that we always want to live today, die if we must tomorrow.  Everybody wants to live; he doesn't want to erase himself because his nature is against it.  He can't consider himself a person who can just quit, even though the body one day will die.  He loves himself as an eternal self.  But not knowing that eternal self, he seeks to perpetuate his life through fame or what not, hoping to live in the history books of mankind.  Or if nothing else, to at least leave behind a son in his own image to perpetuate the same foolishness that he has had so far.  That is because there is a love to live.  Secondly, `I can't stand ignorance, I want to always know.'  Nobody wants to be ignorant, nor even to be called ignorant.  So he poses himself to be very well informed all the time.  Everybody thinks the other fellow is a mad-cap, including the mad-cap.  Nobody wants to accept that he is a fool or he is ignorant.  Why?  Because nobody can stand ignorance.  This is why you have to know what is going on all the time.  When two fellows are talking, you always bend your ear there.  It is this incapacity to brook ignorance that makes you buy that Enquirer.  That is because ignorance is against my nature.  Thirdly, `I want to be happy.'  I want to live and live happily, gathering knowledge.  And if I find that happiness is not available in this world, if this world is too small to make me happy -- if I have concluded this -- then I will take potassium cyanide.  I will raise my hand against myself, for  want to live but then live happily.  Happiness is something I seek because I can't stand my inadequacy as I obtain now.  I can't stand a lack, a want.  I want to be full and complete -- that is called happiness.  So these are the three main things we seek in life:  `I want to live forever,' `I want to be free from ignorance,' and `I want to be full, to be happy.'  There is no fourth thing, as all others fall under these three alone.  If I do jogging, it is because I want to live a few more days.  I want to read the newspaper because I want to know.  I go in for various experiences, in order to discover some crumbs of happiness.

           

And all three are myself alone.  How?  I am free from time.  This is not just verbal.  If you repeat, "I am free from time," that is not what I said.  But if you have seen what is eternity, the content of time where the length of time disappears and where you as awareness alone are -- that awareness is free from time, is the basis of time, therefore free from birth and death -- if you have seen that as yourself, then one problem is solved.  And the second problem is I am ignorant.  But you are not ignorance, you are aware of ignorance.  You are awareness because of which all that you know is known and all that you don't know is known.  There may be ignorance, but I am free from ignorance.  That is what you want really.  And third problem, I want to be happy.  But I being limitless awareness, I am in fact happiness itself.

           

Everyone has experienced happiness now and then.  But it is not always there.  It comes and goes, it is not at your command.  You can't decide that at 4 o'clock tomorrow, I will be happy.  That is why we always wish each other a `good morning,' because there is every possibility of a bad morning.  So like this -- `good morning,' `good afternoon,' `good evening,' `good night,' all day long we wish this because there is a possibility of being happy, but generally I am unhappy.  So joy is not unknown to me; it is known to me.  To be happy, to be free from want and uneasiness -- that freedom is not something that is unknown to me, we pick it up every now and then; it is known.  At those moments when you pick up some joy, you found yourself as happy.  There was no want at the time, there was no desire at that time.  You were quite at home with yourself.  In fact, you are at home with yourself only when you are happy.  You feel ill at ease with yourself when you are not.  It is this happiness which I struggle for all the time.  It is a freedom from inadequacy, a freedom from struggle.  For a moment there is a release, a liberation -- call it what you will, Moksha.  That's why we all love that happiness, because it frees us.

           

Okay, that happiness which you pick up, from where does it come?  You may say, "Oh, from the mountains.  Because the other day when I went to the mountains, oh, I was so happy."  So the mountains are aglow with happiness.  Is it true?  If that is so, everybody on the mountain will be happy.  There are fellows who are on it who want to come down.  And you yourself did not stay there, you came down because you've got better things to do.  The mountain is just mountain.  There are trees, there a re rocks, there are rivers -- that is all that the mountain is, nothing more.  Happy is not an adjective, an attribute, sticking to the mountain.  And if the mountain doesn't have the adjective happy, well, any other object doesn't have the adjective happy.  A rose may make you happy, but a rose may also make you unhappy.  Suppose the rose reminds you of your dear departed wife, how she gave me a rose like that when we first met.  Poor thing, she died; poor me, I live.  Well, we don't find a happy mountain, or a happy rose, or a happy anything.  Suppose happiness is an object, not an adjective, but straight away a noun.  Let us see, which is the object which we can call happiness -- Mr. Happiness or Ms. Happiness or a thing we can call Happiness?  Is it there like an apple or a doughnut?  No, if there is such a thing, we all can go and have a lick and be very happy, everybody.  So we don't find such a thing.  No particular object can be considered happiness.  Because for any object there is always a fellow who wants to get rid of it, and there is always a fellow who wants to receive it.  One fellow is now trying his best to get rid of her.  There is always one fellow who is waiting for that day.  No great reasoning is required, you just stand on the corner.  This fellow is driving so fast to reach that place because there he is going to find something which the place he is giving up can't give.  And there is another fellow who is equally going towards the opposite direction.  If happiness is in the West, why should he go to the East?  And the people in the East go to the West.  I tell you, it is neither in the East or the West, nor above, or below.  There is no particular object in creation which can be called happiness.  Time is not happiness, and space is not happiness.  Otherwise, you would always be happy because you are always with time-space as long as you are awake.  Still I do pick up some.  It must come from somewhere.

           

If not from outside, maybe from inside?  You must have read this; in all those books they say "we should search our happiness within."  The fellow becomes very tight immediately and closes the eyes because `mountain can't make me happy, stars can't make me happy, sky can't make me happy, wife can't make me happy, child can't make me happy.'  Then what?  `So I close my eyes because happiness, the swami told me, was within.'  All the books say this.  I ask `within' means where?  Liver?  Do you say liver gives you happiness?  Take a couple of pancakes, you'll understand how happy it is.  In the kidney is there happiness?  In the heart?  In the nerves?  No, no, within means in the mind, in the thought.  Oh, if in the thought there is happiness, then every thought should make you happy.  In fact, thought creates problems.  No, no, thought is not happiness.  Then where, from where did you pick up happiness?  There is only one thing left out.  Who or what is that?  Myself, myself free from the thought, free from the objects, from my own standpoint myself, simple awareness.  And that is the reason why, I tell you, whenever you become happy you are with yourself, not with any other object.  Even suppose you see an object, if you are happy, you are with yourself not wanting the object.  Is it not true?  When you sat on that cliff overlooking the ocean, you were happy.  The sky didn't make you unhappy, the ocean didn't make you unhappy.  Seeing all these, still you were happy.  Do you know why?  Because you were with yourself, even when you were with the world.  You are not with the world the moment you want the sky to be more blue, bluer than what it is.  If you want the ocean to be different, well, you won't be happy.  Or if you, yourself, sitting there, want to be different, you won't be happy.  In fact, I can be with the whole creation; nothing will happen if I am with myself.  And I don't know how to be with myself, because I don't know myself.  Whenever I don't project, when my demanding mind just gets itself resolved, I find I am happy.  It doesn't come from outside or inside, it is myself.  If I can accept myself the way I am, and the world the way it is, then I find that I am happy, I am at home with myself and the world.  So the third problem of not being happy, that too is solved once I come to appreciate myself, a self which is full, which is complete, and which is therefore the source of all happiness.

           

So I am timeless existence, I am awareness, aware of everything, and I am fullness, happiness.  but why do I miss it and search for it?  It can only be due to ignorance.  If there is something and I don't see that something, either I inquire and find out what it is or I conclude that it is this or that.  The famous Indian illustration for this is the rope and snake.  It is a very important example because there are many errors which we commit, but rope-snake is a special error.  Because the error frightens you, you can't stand it, you want to escape.  What is lying there is a rope but due to some dimness I only see that something is there.  If I carefully inquire what is there I will only find a rope lying there.  But I don't; I just take it for a snake and begin to scream.  The scream, the fear, is caused by the snake, the snake of my own creation.  If I see something, I have to do something with it.  And without inquiry, if I take something, if I conclude about something, then the conclusion will ever be different from what it is.  If I inquire and find it a rope, then it is knowledge.  If I take it as anything other than rope, it is an error.  Thus an object that is perceived, when it is not recognized as it is, an error is inevitable.  A physical body is right in sight; if I know myself as the subject and the body as an object, then no confusion, no error is committed.  But if I know not myself as the subject as it is, then an `I' is available and an object is available -- there seems to be some peculiar relationship between I and the body, and for want of knowledge, I take the body as the I.  Because the body is readily available as an object and I don't know where to properly place the `I,' then naturally I will place it in the body. I am intimately connected with this body alone and therefore I conclude Daho'ham I am the body.  So with this body I have a confusion.

           

A fusion between I and the body is acceptable, but a confusion is different.  If there is an iron ball and it is rendered red hot, it gains a brilliance and heat.  The brilliance and heat don't belong to the iron ball which is by its nature dull and cool to the touch.  But when you can say `the iron burns, the iron is brilliant,' even though the brilliance and burning capacity belong only to the fire.  And the fire being there very much in this iron ball, you can take it as a fire ball weighing so many pounds and of such a form.  The weight and form of the iron can be attributed to the fire.  You can say that it is a fire ball weighing twenty-five pounds, or you can say that the iron is brilliant and hot.  Both statements are wrong.  It is one thing to see the fire and iron together -- there is a fusion there.  But it is quite another to conclude the fire is iron and the iron is fire.  Two things can be together and still we can appreciate one as one, and the other as the other.  The iron ball shines and is hot because of fire, the fire gains a form due to the iron ball.  For this discrimination, you need not destroy the iron ball.  You need not dive deep into the iron ball.  Even though they are together, my knowledge is that one is one and the other is other.  So, too, here it is one thing to say that the body is conscious, it is quite another to say that the body is the `I,' the consciousness.  Because the subject and object cannot be the same.  You can't ride on your own shoulders, and you can't see your eyeballs with your eyes.

           

So we commit an error about ourself and take ourself as having all the limitations of the body and the mind, and moreover this body and mind we give it the stature, the reality, of the I.  I who, in fact, am adequate and complete, become incomplete, inadequate.  And this mortal body I cannot get along with because I don't want it to quit, I want it to live forever, as eternity is natural to the I.  This is why an inquiry is warranted and this inquiry is that which goes under the name `Vedanta.'  And it is this teaching which leads to knowledge of ourself and thereby solves the fundamental human problem, the problem which has got to be solved by every one of us.  Without solving the problem, we cannot be at home with ourself or the world.  Solving the problem, we discover ourself as complete, as adequate, as happy.  What is required is only knowledge of the self, so what is needed is a proper inquiry, an inquiry with the help of the right teacher who knows himself, who knows yourself.