The ignorance of I thought

* "The ignorance is identical with the "I"-thought. Find its source and it will vanish. The "I"-thought is like a spirit which is not palpable, and it rises up simultaneously with the body, flourishes on it and disappears with it."

* All these notes you are making of my sayings and so on, are useful for beginners, for friends and to answer the questions of others. But for yourself, you know that they are only pieces of paper. Dive into the Self and find all you want to know there!

*By repeated practice one can become accustomed to turning inwards and finding the Self. One must always and constantly make an effort, until one has permanently realized. Once the effort ceases, the state becomes natural and the Supreme takes possession of the person with an unbroken current. Until it has become permanently natural and your habitual state, know that you have not realized the Self, only glimpsed it.

* What need is there to explain the non-self? Take Vedanta, for instance: they say there are fifteen kinds of prana (breath, vital force, the upward flow of energy). The student is made to memorize their names and functions. The air goes up and is called prana, and when it comes down it is called apana (the downward flow of energy); it operates the indriyas (organs of sense) and is called something else. Why all this? Why do you classify, give names and enumerate the functions, and so on? Is it not enough to know that one prana does the whole work? The antahkarana (mind; the seat of thought and feeling) thinks, desires, wills, reasons etc, and each function is attributed to one name such as mind or intellect. Has anyone seen the pranas or the antahkaranas. Have they any real being? They are mere concepts. When and where will they end?

*Consider this: A man sleeps. He says on waking that he slept. The question is asked, "Why does he not say in his sleep that he is sleeping?" The answer is given that he is sunk in the Self and cannot speak, like somebody diving into a pool to bring something up from the bottom. The diver cannot speak. When he has actually recovered the article and emerges from the water, he speaks. Well, what is the explanation? When he is immersed in the water, it would gush into his mouth if he were to open it to speak. It's simple, isn't it? But the philosopher is not content with this simple fact. He explains it by saying that fire is the deity that presides over speech, and that it is inimical to water and therefore cannot function. This is called philosophy and students are struggling to learn all this. Isn't it a sheer waste of time? Again the gods are said to preside over the limbs and senses of the individual. So they talk about hiranyagarba (cosmic egg) etc. Why should confusion be created and then explained away? Those who do not involve themselves in this maze are lucky. I was very fortunate that I never took to it. If I had, I would probably be nowhere, always in confusion. Fortunately, my vasanas (inherent tendencies and conditioning) took me directly to the "Who am I?" enquiry.

*All relative knowledge belongs to the mind, not the Self. It is therefore illusory, not permanent. A scientist who formulates the theory that the earth is round, for instance, may prove it incontrovertibly, but when he falls asleep the whole idea vanishes: his mind is left blank. What does it matter if the world is round or flat when he is asleep? So you see the futility of all such relative knowledge. Real knowledge is to go beyond all relative knowledge and abide in the Self. Realize that the Self transcends intellect; the intellect itself must vanish to reach the Self.

*The jnanis (one who has realized the Self) point out that the yogi assumes the existence of the body and its separateness from the Self, and therefore advises effort for their reunion by the practice of yoga. In fact, the body is in the mind, which is seated in the brain; the brain functions by light borrowed from another source, as admitted by the yogis themselves in their fontanelle theory (that the life-current enters the body through the fontanelle, the soft spot in the head at birth). The jnani argues that if the light is borrowed, it must come from its original source. Go to the source directly and do not depend upon borrowed resources. An iron ball needs fire to come into being separate from the mass of iron. Later, it cools down relinquishing the fire, but it must be heated once again if it is to reunite with the mass. So, the cause of separation from the Self must also be its means of union.