From 'Knowing the Self, To Being the Self'
Ram in dialogue with Premananda
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P: Please talk about the states of Self – Realisation and Enlightenment? R. The question should actually be “Who am I?” because you, the Self, is not a state. You, the Self, are neither in or out of a state. From the Self’s point of view all states are in you. This means that you are always beyond all states, you are that because of which any state of mind is known. If you are an individual in a state, then the state is bigger than you and you are conditioned by the state you are in. People want to fall in love, for example, because the state of ‘in love’ makes them feel good. The question ‘what state am I in?’ shows that you think of yourself as a limited, conditioned being. Limited beings are continually trying to remove their sense of limitation and therefore are always trying to achieve a state that makes them feel limitless. This does not work because you already are limitless….as the Self. So the question then becomes what is the Self? If you can figure out what the Self is and identify with it, you will be free. If you are the Self, all states are objects of your awareness. This means that you know the states…but the state does not know you. If you are angry, you know you are angry, the anger does not know you. If your mind is quiet, you know the quiet mind but the quiet mind does not know you. The Self is all states of mind but states of mind are not the Self. The Self is the knower of everything and enlightenment is the knowledge “I am limitless actionless awareness. I am the Self.” It is not a state. It is jnanam, knowledge. The knowledge an enlightened person has is, ‘I am the Self’, not that I am this guy Premananda who has a particular state; because there the ‘I’ pertains to the limited guy Premananda, to whom the state, whether it be high or low, is added. If a state is added on to you, then that state is going to be changing, and you are going to be changing when you are in that state. So if you are something that is subject to change you are not real. ‘Real’ means eternal. The enlightened you – the real ‘you’ does not modify or change, and is totally unaffected by any experience. So when you say ‘I,’ you need to look and see which ‘I’ is talking. Is it this person that feels modified by experience or is it the person who remains unchanged or unmodified by experience? Enlightenment is the knowledge that no experience can affect me one way or another. Therefore, I do not have any bias towards pleasurable experiences nor do I have an aversion toward unpleasant experiences. I know that all experiences are ephemeral and that they do not validate or invalidate me. If somebody comes and hugs me it does not mean that I am a great guy; if somebody comes and slaps me, it does not mean that I am a bad guy…because I am unaffected by my experience. Where is the experience that was happening an hour ago? It is gone – it was here and then it just disappeared…but you are still the same. You are the awareness that was there before the experience happened and you are the awareness of the experience as it happened. When the experience went away, you did not disappear - you were not changed. Premananda was changed a little bit perhaps, some feelings were changed in Premananda’s mind – positive or negative – but then when the feelings dissolved there you were again – the same you. So that ‘you’ which is unaffected by experience is called the ‘Self’ and the knowledge ‘I Am the Self’ is enlightenment. P: What would be the signs of that? R. Here are some verses from the Bhagavad Gita, so I am just going to tell you what the Gita says. First Arjuna asks Krishna the question, ‘What are the signs of an enlightened soul?’ and Krishna says, ‘When a man completely casts off, O Partha, all the desires of the mind …’ [Ch.2, v.55] P: Does that mean, for example, if I were sitting in a restaurant and a beautiful woman comes in and I start fancying her? R. It has nothing to do with whether or not you fancy her. It has everything to do with why you fancy her. If you fancy her and are thinking that making love with her will increase your fundamental happiness you are deluded. If you fancy her as the Self, if you see the light in her and recognize it as the light in you and everything, then that would be the response of an enlightened person. But that does not mean that you will try to get her in bed. If you are just conditioned, like Pavlov’s dog, to start fancying a woman that your vasanas attract you to, then you are just an animal. It’s OK to be an animal, but it isn’t Self realization. P: But there is nothing actually stopping me from doing it? As long as I am not caught up with the idea that it will make me feel good or feel bad? R. People usually want things because they think things will make them happier. If you feel that love is modifying you, then you are not the Self. That person would be Premananda, the Ego. It is very easy to fool yourself on the issue of desires. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna is not saying not to have desires in the mind. In fact in one verse he says, “I am the desire that is not opposed to dharma.” An enlightened person can have desires, it is quite natural, but an enlightened person… someone who sees his or herself as limitless awareness…has a non-attached relationship to the desires that appear in the mind. It is all about one’s relationship to the desires. So how does a jnani, view desires? In The Course of Miracles, it says, ‘From what you want God won’t save you.’ What does that mean? It means that the karma from indulging your desires may not be as wonderful as you think. In fact experience teaches that sometimes we get what we want and sometimes we don’t, so on one hand we can’t even count on getting what we want….which can lead to frustration and depression. It also teaches that sometimes we aren’t happy when we get what we want and at other times we are happy when we get what we don’t want. So, on the other hand, tying happiness to the satisfaction of your desires is foolish. In the Gita it says when a person, ‘… is satisfied in the Self by the Self, then is he said to be one of steady Wisdom.’ [Ch.2, v.55] This is a statement that applies to an enlightened person: when one is satisfied in the Self alone. The desires of the mind are optional and can be ignored without causing agitation. When you know that ‘you’ are the source of your satisfaction and don’t look for satisfaction outside yourself through fame, security, pleasure, wealth and duty, etc. then you are wise. P: I think one of my difficulties when you tell me these things, is when did it start? When was it that I started to say certain things? In some way, I could say I was always like this. As long as I can remember that was true. R. Yes, that is the Self. It was always true for the Self. It did not become true at some point for the Self. Maybe for Premananda it became true at a certain point. But for the Self it is always true. It says in the Upanishads, “It is not for the sake of the wife that the husband loves the wife but for the sake of the Self.” Now that could mean the ego but it does not mean the ego – it means the Self. Because everything is done for the sake of the Self and everything is the Self, including all activity. When you love somebody, it isn’t your girlfriend you love although you perhaps think it is; it is the Self in your girlfriend that you love. When you get involved as a person love goes out the door. P: So what do you make of my personal situation? How does my situation fit in with this whole Self-thing we are discussing? R. You see, you are not a person. You have no personal situation. What is personal about you…your hair, your nose, your mind? Nothing here is personal. ‘Personal’ is a concept that is born of ignorance of your real nature. How does any of what you consider yours become yours? Your body is just five elements, not different from any other body. The pranas are just universal forces working in the impersonal body. Where is it written that it belongs to a guy named Premananda? Are any of the thoughts in your mind unique? They are not. As we speak there are millions of people thinking the same thoughts we are. What about your feelings? When you feel lust, is it a special Premananda lust? It isn’t. When you enter the state of deep sleep are you entering your own personal state of sleep. No. A king sleeping on silk sheets and a drunk sleeping in the gutter are enjoying the same state. There is nothing personal here. The Bhagavad Gita says, ‘He whose mind is not shaken by adversity, and who in prosperity does not hanker after pleasures, who is free from attachment, fear and anger, is called a sage-of-steady-Wisdom.’ [Ch.2, v.56] If you hanker after pleasures, that may be Premananda, but it is not the Self. If you are upset when things don’t go your way, that’s Premananda and not the Self. Enlightenment confers the power of viveka, the ability to discriminate between the Self and the non-Self – to know which is which. So all you need to do is know what Premananda is and know what the Self is. When you get that sorted you can decide whether you want to be Premananda or the Self. It is up to you. When you think of yourself as Premananda, a person in this world, working to get certain things and get rid of certain other things, then you are said to be an aviveki, someone who lacks discrimination, a samsari. |
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R. Well what I am saying is that you are the light of the world. The Self illumines the Universe. The Universe is an object of the Self’s awareness. Without ‘you’ there is no Universe. P. That much is clear. R. Therefore the Universe is a second order of reality; you are prior to the Universe. You are before Premananda and you are prior to the Universe. In Vedanta, there is the Self, the Individual, and the Universe. Its called jagat, jiva and ishwarya (which means the Self). Vedanta is about these three factors: The Self, the Individual, and the Universe. All three are the Self, but the Self is prior to jagat and jiva. Jiva means – Premananda. Not YOU, but you – the little you. There is a whole science about these three things. You are confused about which ‘you’ is primary. This ‘Premananda’ is taking information from the Self in the form of the Universe i.e. in the form of karma – actions. P. Things happening. R. Right, things happening and information from other jivas in the Universe who are leading or teaching. However, without this Self, this does not exist. You are the boss of all of it and you can choose – the Universe is under your control, and you can select whatever elements in the Universe you want. People come to me every day and I turn down more people and ideas than I accept – its the Universe coming to me, asking, or telling me something relevant – but its I who choose. ………………………………… R. Depends on who ‘you’ are. If you are the Self, it does not matter whether he is there or not. However, if you say, ‘ I don’t know whether it is good for me or not’, then that ‘I’ is Premananda. So can it be good for Premananda or not? It cannot. It is like Krishna talking with Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna was worried about killing and Krishna tells him that you cannot kill the Self, it is all the Self and you cannot kill it, and it cannot be slain. Arjuna could not understand it, as it was too subtle for him. So Krishna says even if you are just an ego and the other warriors are just egos, death is not a problem because we just get reborn. Therefore, it comes down to the level of ego and Krishna says it does not matter on an ego level either. The Self is not going to be affected by this and Premananda is not going to be affected either. In fact, nobody will be affected by how it turns out one way or the other because it is all ephemeral. P. So then, nothing really matters? R. We have already said that there is no meaning and that it is just all play. P. Its just divine leela. How I would put it is, that although its just all divine leela, I still have to tune into what it is telling me to do. R. I am saying you are the divine leela. You wrote the play, and can jump in and say well the play is telling me what to do. You are the director playing at being an actor. P. I am not clear here. R. Yes? P. I can say. ‘ I will have ice cream at 3.00 p.m. everyday.’ Somehow, it will turn up everyday. Is that what you are saying? R. Or if it does not you can rewrite the script. P: What does that mean? R. That means you are free to take the ice cream, or not to take the ice cream. Because the play is non-essential, you are what is essential. P. Lets discuss this some more. Now for instance the Ashram that I am staying in is really a lovely place and they are saying to me that they have fifty people coming on Monday and I must leave. I say well if I am meant to go to the beach or the mountains that is fine. But what you are saying is that Premananda can decide what is going to happen. R. I am not saying that Premananda can decide, I am saying that the Self decides. P. Yes, that is right. R. Now where is all this taking place? P: In ‘there’. R. Right, in ‘there’. The Ashram is taking place in ‘there’, the ocean, the beach, the other people, are taking place in ‘there’. In addition, your light is shining on all these things. It is your awareness, which is illumining the Ashram, the moving out, the fifty people, and the whole picture. You are illumining the whole thing. So, who is in charge of this play, and who is assigning meaning to this or that particular option? ‘You’, the Light, the Awareness. Premananda is in the play too isn’t he? Premananda is one of those funny little clowns who jump around doing all these things in the play; you can decide what the meaning is for Premananda too, because Premananda is just a concept in ‘You’. If you are in a dream and there is a dream ego running down the beach, and that ego gets eaten by a tiger – so the dream tiger eats the dream ego – you could say, ‘Oh! I was eaten in the dream by the dream tiger’, but the dream tiger and the dream ego were you, and you were the light shining on the dream. P: This is a bit strong for me. You are going to have go through this all again slowly because it is very strong. This is calling quits on my whole game. R. That’s right Premananda. (Laughs). |