"The very first step in understanding what this is all about is giving up the concept of an active, volitional 'I' as a separate entity and accepting the passive role of perceiving and functioning as a process." - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Thursday, August 10, 2017

You are Changeless and Eternal

Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj

The 'mind' means to say or assert something. Not to say anything means the relinquishing of the mind. When is relenquished, everything is forgotten, and nothing remains. That nothingness is the causal body (karana deha). This is the night of ignorance. Beyond this is the kingdom of Mahadeva. If we study this forgetfulness deeply, we can experience that there is nothing that is called the causal body. When all is forgotten, and this nothing remains, then you must also give up that very nothing. When all is gone, all is thrown aside, what remains is you, yourself. This Consciousness is Brahman. He is the knower of the three worlds; the waking state, the dream state and the deep sleep state. The waking state is the world of Brahman called satya-loka, the dream state is the world of Vishnu called Vaikuntha-loka, and the deep sleep state is the world of Shiva called Kailasa-loka. Paramatman is beyond all of these.

In the dream state, there is an entity who dreams, who is someone other than the character in the dream. The dream comes and goes, the deep sleep comes and goes, even the waking state comes and goes, the Knowledge of things comes and goes, and Knowledge itself comes and then goes away. Everything that comes, goes away, yet you remain. That which is changeless and eternal is YOU. You witness all of these states. Any taste that comes is sure to go. Any pleasure enjoyed is gone. You may understand anything, but that which you understand does not remain. It is all in the Illusion and thereby mortal. A child is born and if it dies, we dispose of the body. We do so because the child is dead and gone. So, to know the child, its greatness, its enjoyment, the care given to it, is all mortal. It is in the realm of death, Illusion. Anything that is of this realm, whatever is enjoyed, whatever is experienced, even Knowledge, is not immortal. It is all dead. They say that men who are full of Knowledge enjoy the nectar immortality, but all of their experience together with the knowledge of Vaikuntha and Kailasa, is dead, as they are not immortal. Only the "Man of Self-Knowledge", the jnani, enjoys the nectar of immortality.

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सर्वभूताधिवासं यद्भूतेषु च वसत्यपि।
सर्वानुग्राहकत्वेन तद्स्म्यहं वासुदेवः॥

That in whom reside all beings and who resides in all beings,
who is the giver of grace to all, the Supreme Soul of the universe, the limitless being:
I AM THAT. -- Amritabindu Upanishad