Non-Existent Mind Cannot Die

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: You say that I am the Self, and that I don't even need to look inwards to discover it. I think that grace is needed to experience the truth of this statement since effort of any kind seems to be counterproductive.

AS: Grace is always present, always available, but for it to be effective, one must be in a state to receive it and make full use of it. If you want to take a full cup of water from a lake, you have fully to immerse the cup first. If you want to fill your mind with grace, submerge it fully in the Self. In that place the grace will manifest in you as peace and happiness.

Q: Does the mind die gradually or suddenly?

AS: One answer is: 'When the sun comes up, does darkness disappear suddenly or gradually?'

Bhagavan, speaking on this topic, once remarked: 'Someone mistakes a rope hanging in the darkness for a snake. He then asks how many years it will take for the snake to die.'

This is a better answer: If the mind does not exist, it cannot die either quickly or slowly.

Self is Here and Now

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: Why does the mind always go outwards instead of inwards?

AS: Because we don't ask the question, 'Why does the mind go outwards instead of inwards?'

This question arises because the nature of happiness is not properly understood. People are always looking for it in the wrong places and by doing the wrong activities. You begin with the impression, which is really a misunderstanding, that happiness is something that can be found outside you, and furthermore, that you have to do something or go somewhere to reach it. This is your illusion, and it is your belief in this illusion that makes the mind search for happiness in the outside world.

Even when you are told, 'Happiness is within you as your own Self. Look inwards and find it.', still you think that you have to do something or go somewhere to discover it. This is the power of maya or illusion. This is like one fish in the sea asking another fish for directions to the ocean.

While you are not aware that your glasses are resting on your nose, you may look for them all day, thinking that they are lost. As a consequence, you believe that they are an object to be found. Eventually, you realize that you were wearing them all the time.

While your search was on, that which was being sought was, in reality, that through which the seeing was taking place. You were looking for an object that finally turned out to be the subject that was doing the seeing. So it is with the mind and the Self. Mind sets up the notion that the Self needs to be found, and then proceeds to hunt for it as if it were some object that could be located in some interior place. This is as foolish as a man with a goat wrapped round his shoulders spending his time wandering around, looking for his goat, and asking everything he meets where it might be.

Focus on the Centre

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: The wheel of life - manifestation, samsara - seems to continue whether one is established in that peace or not. Is there nothing in this manifestation that provides a key to peace?

AS: If you understand the true nature of this wheel of life, this wheel that is giving everyone so much alternating happiness and misery, this understanding will lead you to where is no wheel, no change, no movement. This wheel is spinning in the substratum of the changeless Self. If you take your position in the still, peaceful centre of the Self you will know, simultaneously, that the Self is motionless peace, and that the spinning wheel is also the Self.

Q: Why is there a need to have this spinning wheel in the Self? Why a need for manifestation at all?

AS: This question is happening only in your mind. If you remain in the Self, as the Self, the question will not arise. Whether you move your hand or keep it still, it is still a hand. Its nature is not changed in either case. Maya is the Self. All is the Self. If you give up all distinctions, you will know this for yourself. That's all you need to do.
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Kabir, on seeing a woman grinding corn, said to his Guru, Nipathiranjana, "I am weeping because I feel the agony of being crushed in this wheel of wordly existence like the corn in the hand-mill." Nipathiranjana replied, "Do not be afraid; hold fast to the handle of knowledge of this mill, as I do, and do not wander far away from the same but turn inward to the Centre, and you are sure to be saved."  - From Sri Shirdi Sai Satcharitra

Peace: The Underlying Nature of Consciousness

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: It is difficult for me to stay focussed on the I-thought especially when I am in the middle of worldly activities. Is it enough to be aware of awareness, of consciousness in general?

AS: If you are conscious of of consciousness, there is no duality. Everything is included in consciousness.

Q: But is it enough to be aware of the awareness?

AS: You are repeating the question, so I will repeat the answer. If you remain in the state of consciousness, there will be nothing apart from it. No problem, no misery, no questions.

Q: Are you always in that state of consciousness? I find that when I am busy with activities, thoughts come up and I am no longer remembering myself. I am no longer focusing on consciousness.

AS: I don't lose consciousness of the Self because I don't get identified with the body and the mind. It is only in the state in which you identify with the body and the mind that problems arise.

In deep sleep we forget the body and the mind, but consciousness is still there. That same state is present now, while we are awake. If you give up all your ideas about separateness, that will be enough. When those ideas have gone you realize you are everything.

Q: In the Ribhu Gita it is mentioned that bad qualities and good qualities are both Brahman. Does that mean that we don't need to care about good and bad qualities?

AS: In your real state there is only consciousness. In deep sleep no names and forms manifest in that consciousness, whereas in the dreaming and waking state they do. When you look at a piece of cloth, you notice its name and form attributes: the color, the design, the thickness, etc. But what you are really looking at is just threads. The underlying nature of consciousness, the equivalent of the threads in the cloth, is peace. To abide knowingly as consciousness is to be a deep, undisturbed peace, even though thoughts and activities may be manifesting in it. When you see through the eyes of wisdom, there is only peace. No bondage or samsara touches you. Even to say that the Self is peace is not quite correct. I call it peace, but really, it is not something that can be described or defined by words.

Good and bad qualities are ideas that manifest in the mind, in samsara. They are concepts that vanish when only this peace remains. When you are peace, when you are consciousness, all good qualities will manifest in you and through you but you will not be aware of them being 'good'. You will just be that peace.

Satsang Needed for True Knowledge

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: Does the acquisition of spiritual knowledge make the mind mature?

AS: The acquisition of knowledge belong to the realm of education, not sadhana. Seeing everything as one is the true seeing, and controlling the five senses in the body is the true sadhana. They must be controlled, and success in this endeavour is truly heroic. No traditional education can prepare you for this. Realizing the Self is the true education.

One of Mahatma Gandhi's disciples was educated to a very high level. He was also a pious man and a strict disciplinarian with himself. When he realized that all he wanted in life was Self realization, he tore up all academic certificated and threw them away. He knew that neither his education nor his worldly knowledge would help him. In fact by doing this he implied that his knowledge was a hindrance that had to be rejected.

A proper education does not come from books. It comes from associating with jnanis. They alone guide us and teach us properly. I served Bhagavan for 12 years. Looking back all those years I can now say that just as you cannot get a proper formal academic education without attending school, one cannot get a true spiritual education without satsang, either with a jnani or with one's own Self. 

Mind Does Not Exist

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: What is it that brings maturity and growth in a person? How do the gunas change in such a way that the mind eventually becomes sattvik?

AS: Self has no birth, no death, no sufferings and no problems. It is the witness of all these phenomena, but it is untouched by them. All these experiences happen to the mind, and through numerous lives the mind lives, learns and matures. It takes a body and learns some lessons in the body. Then it takes another form, another body and learns something else. The mind goes on like this for innumerable life times until it has finally learned to go back to its source, the Self.

Q: Do the five sheaths, the koshas, mature in this process? Do some of them mature, or do all of them?

AS: Mind inlcudes all the five koshas. Through many lifetimes one can say that the koshas are maturing and growing, but realization ultimately has nothing to do with the mature mind or mature koshas. It is the state in which one transcends the koshas and the mind. It is the state in which one finally understands that the mind, whether mature or immature, never really existed.

Initial Experience Not Enough

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: Is there still work to be done after the Self is reached and experienced?

AS: Initially, abidance in the Self may not be firm and irreversible. Vigilance may be needed at first to maintain it. 

There is a verse from Kaivalya Navaneeta that Bhagavan often quoted. It speaks of the need of the vigilance even after the Self has been experienced for the first time. In the verse the disciple is speaking to his Guru: 'Lord, you are the Reality remaining as my inmost Self, ruling me during all my countless incarnations! Glory to you who have put on an external form in order to instruct me. I do not know how to repay your grace for having liberated me. Glory! Glory to your Holy Feet!'

The Guru replies: 'To stay fixed in the Self without the three kinds of obstacles (ignorance, uncertainty, and wrong knowledge) obstructing your experience, is the highest return you can render me.' 

The Guru knows that without vigilance, and initial experience of the Self may slip away. 

Q: Why is this initial experience not enough?

AS: If vasanas are still there, they will rise up again and the experience will be lost. While they are there, there is always the possibility that we may again take the unreal to be real. 

If we take the mirage to be real water, that is ignorance. Similarly, if we take the unreal body to be the Self, that is also ignorance. As soon as ignorance comes, you must question it. 'To whom does this ignorance come?' A strong determination to pursue enquiry in this way will dissolve all doubts. By questioning 'Who am I?' and by constantly meditating, one comes to the clarity of being. 

As long as vasanas continue to exist, they will rise and cover the reality, obscuring awareness of it. As often as you become aware of them, question, 'To whom to they come?' This continuous enquiry will establish you in your own Self and you will have no further problems. When you know that the snake of the mind never existed, when you know that the rope of reality is all that exists, doubts and fears will not trouble you again. 

Guru is Within

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: Ramana Maharshi told you to leave his ashram because, you say, he wanted you not to be attached to his form. You had already contacted the formless, and you knew that the Maharshi was not the form you saw in the ashram.

It seems to me that the physical form is not that important. It seems to me that it is more important to find God, the Self, in the Heart. This leads me to the question of how important it is to have a physical master. In order to realize the Self, do we need to have a physical master? For myself, I am beginning to feel more and more that it has nothing to do with a physical form, but sometimes I have doubts. Am I just fooling myself that by believing that I can contact the Self within without the aid of an external physical master?

AS: If you go to a physical Guru and ask him how to realize the Self, he will probably tell you that you are already the Self, and that you should just hold onto the Self that you already are. If you can manage that you will be with the true Guru all the time, and you will not need the physical form of the Guru to keep reminding you of who you are. In that state you will be living with Bhagavan, staying as the Self, holding onto the real I at all times.

If you go to the physical form of the Guru and ask about Self-realization, you will not be told about the importance of the physical form of the Guru. You will be told to hold onto the real "I". You will be told that you should not fall into the trap of believing that the Guru is just a body. The Guru is inside you as the Self. If you follow the advice that the physical Guru gives, you will discover that the inner and outer Gurus are one and the same.

However, very few people can manage this by themselves.

Keep the Mind in the Self

Sri Annamalai Swami

If you abide as the Self, you will see the world as the Self. In fact, there will be no world at all. No world, no maya, no mind, no distinctions of any kind. It is like the state of seeing only wood in the carved elephant, only threads in the dyed cloth. In that state of being and knowing the Self, ideas of right and wrong, things to do and things to avoid doing, will vanish. You will know that they were just mental concepts. In that state you will know that the mind is the Self, bondage is the Self, everything is the Self. With that vision, nothing will bind you; nothing will cause you misery.

The Self may appear as the manifest world, as different separate objects, but the underlying reality, the only real substance is the Self in which they are all appearing and disappearing. Things and people may appear in this substratum, and you may use them and interact with them, but your peace will never be disturbed.

When you abide as the Self, there is no one left to choose and decide. Life goes on automatically. You will pick up the things that are needed, and not pick up the things that are not needed. What you pick up and what you don't pick up will not be a consequence of what you like or dislike. These preferences will not be there anymore.

This perspective will be yours when you give up or cease to believe the idea, 'I am different from the world'. Giving up this thought is a great sadhana in itself. Abandoning this false idea will be enough to give you peace.

When the thought is there, the world seems to be full of good and bad people, all busily engaged in doing what appear to you to be good things and bad things. When the thought is absent, you know them all to be your own Self. In that state you won't like them, dislike them or judge them, or be aware of them as being other than your own Self. This absence of likes, dislikes and judgments will leave you in your original natural state of peace.

Teeth and tongue are both parts of you, and they will function in harmony, without fighting or struggling. When there is the knowledge that mind and Self are one, there will be no be fights, no struggles, and no attempts to judge or attain. To have this harmony, place the mind in the Self and keep it there. This is the real meditation.

However, until you reach this state where there are no distinctions and preferences, you should use a little discrimination with regard to who and what you associate with. Avoid bad company and bad thoughts, and try to keep the conviction that nothing is separate from you.

During sleep you have no likes and dislikes. Jnanis and babies manage this while they are awake. Baby mind is good; jnani mind is good; 'I am the body' mind is very, very bad.

Be the Self, Ignore the Thoughts

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: Is the ability to remember 'I am the Self' part of one's destiny?

AS: If you are the Self, no destiny will affect you. If you tear your shirt, does that mean that you are also torn? No. Something has happened to something that is not you. Similarly, the body and the mind will experience pleasure, happiness, misery, and so on, all according to the karma that has been brought into this life. But the Self has no attachment, no detachment, no happiness, no unhappiness and no karma. The body is not the Self; the mind is not the Self. The real "I" is the Self, and nothing ever happens to or affects the Self.

Thoughts will come as long as the potential for them is inside you. Good thoughts, bad thoughts, they will all keep coming. There is nothing you can do about this flow, but at the same time this flow of thoughts need not be a problem. Be the Self, be the peace that is your real nature, and it will not matter what comes up. Walk, eat, drink, sleep, meditate, but never think that you are the one who is doing these things. The thoughts that you are doing something is the thought that is poisoning your life. Because once you think that you are doing something, you will start to think that you need to be doing something else to put yourself in a better situation. You don't have to do anything to experience the nectar of the Self. All you need to do is drop the idea that you are doing anything at all.

You need to change your vision, your perspective. When you live in the mind and see the world outside you that is separate and apart from you, you will make plans, you will worry, you will have doubts such as the ones you have been telling me about today. These doubts keep coming up in you because you are not dwelling in the source, the substratum. In that place there is oneness, a oneness in which all distinctions, all separation is absent.

Do Not Identify With Your Body

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: I know that the jnani has no dislikes and no preferences, but I have to admit I am different. I have a strong desire to be in your presence. I believe that being here is doing me good, so I stay. Here I have a beautiful feeling that no one has loved me as he does.

AS: Drop the body-mind idea and you will discover that you don't have any likes or dislikes. You do not think that your shirt is yourself. Similarly, the jnani does not believe that he is his body or his mind. The jnani understands that the body and the mind are animated by the Self, but he also knows that he shines as the Self whether the body and mind are there or not.

Without the Self, the body and the mind can do nothing at all. You could not eat, sleep, speak, or do anything at all without the Self.

Keep your body in good condition if you want to, but don't ever believe that it is you. You can keep your car in good working order without ever believing that you are the car. Have the same attitude towards your body. You are not your car and you are not your body. Both will perish, but the Self will continue because it is always there. When you identify with transient things that will pass away or perish, you too will pass away and perish, but when you identify with the Self, you will not pass away or change in any way. The Self has no birth, no death, no bondage, no misery, no youth, no old age, and no sickness. These are attributes of changing bodies and minds, not the Self. Be the Self and none of these things will ever happen to you.

All is Self

Sri Annamalai Swami

The "I am the body" thought is just as poisonous as a cobra. "All is my Self. All is the nectar of my own Self." These are the great affirmations that counter the "I am the body" thought. Holding on to one of these sayings is the equal of millions of punyas. If we continuously meditate on the truth of these statements, if we hold on to the truth of these statements, if we hold on to the truth that they are pointing towards, countless punyas will accrue to us.

There are many other mantras, but none are as useful as these. Ribhu Gita says, "All is the Self". This is the truth that you have to hold on to. To the real "I", nothing is foreign in the entire universe. If you know you are everything there will be no desire to pursue some things and not others. Nothing will be liked more or less than anything else. Do you like or desire your arm more than your foot? When your body is the whole universe, likes, dislikes and desires will be absent.

Ignore Thoughts and Get Back to the Self

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: Swamiji frequently says that we should meditate constantly to stay in the Self. I find that I cannot meditate constantly. When I realize that I am not meditating, the mind tells me that I should do something to get back into the Self. This is my real state, my actual condition. I cannot constantly stay in the Self.

AS: When this thought 'I am not meditating', or 'I am not in the Self' arises, just ignore it and go back into the Self. When thoughts such as these arise, look at them and think, 'Not me, not my business', and go back to the Self. Don't waste energy on thinking or evaluating how well or how badly you are doing in your meditation.

Q: When attentiveness has been lost, when I realize that I am not in the present, that I am not meditating, the mind is inevitably distracted. The thought, the evaluation, always comes: 'I am distracted'.

AS: Whatever thoughts come, ignore them. You have to ignore anything that is connected to the body-mind idea, anything that is based on the notion that you are the mind or the body. If you can do this, the rising thought will not disturb or distract you. In a split second, it will run away.

All thoughts are distractions, including the thought 'I am meditating'. If you are the Self, darkness will not overcome you. Whatever thoughts arise in that state won't affect you.

Nothing Can Harm the Self

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: But is there anything I can do to discover this? Is not all effort pointless if everything that happens to me is predestined?

AS: All these doubts that are troubling you arise simply because you are enmeshed in the 'I am the body' thought and all the confusing consequences that it brings. It is more productive to keep the awareness 'I am the Self' than to be analyzing the usefulness of effort. Sadhana, effort and practice, and any ideas you may have about them, are concepts that can only arise when you believe that you are not the Self, and when you believe that you have to do something to reach the Self.

Even the sequence, "To who has this thought come? To me" is based on ignorance of the truth. Why? Because it is verbalizing a state of ignorance; it is perpetuating an erroneous assumption that there is a person who us having troublesome thoughts. You are the Self, not some make-believe person who is having thoughts.

If you remain in the Self, no harm can come to you. In that state, whatever comes to you will not be a problem. There is no duality when you remain as the Self; no thoughts about what you should or should not do, and no thoughts about what can be done or what can't be done. The main things is not to go out of the Self. When you have switched on the light, darkness cannot come, not even if you desire it.

Keep Your Attention on the Self

Sri Annamalai Swami

 If you remain as the Self, no vasanas and no karmas will touch or affect you. If you remain in the mind, thoughts of one sort or another will bother you all the time.

Q: If I understand you correctly, my karma is all the activities that my body has to undertake in this life. I can be a witness to it but I cannot change it. If I pick up this glass that is in front of me, it happened because it was my karma to pick it up in this moment. I don't have a choice. Either I am destined to pick it up, or I am not. Bhagavan said the same thing. When someone picked up a fan and asked if that act was destined from the moment he was born, Bhagavan said, 'Yes, it was destined'.

AS: If the thoughts 'I should meditate' or 'I should realize' arise, ask yourself, 'To whom are these thoughts arising?' Why do you need to think about your body and your mind so much? If you are the light, there is no darkness. If you are the Self, there is no thought, no body, and no mind to give you any trouble. Any number of thoughts may come. Let them. But remember all the time, 'I am the Self'. You are not the vasanas, you are not the thoughts, you are the Self. Keep that awareness and don't worry too much about what is going on in your mind, and what it means.

Don't allow any identification to settle on you. Don't think, 'I am sitting in Bhagavan's shrine'. Don't think, 'I am doing, I am acting, I am sitting.'

You are the Self, not the body. Even your vasanas are the Self. All is your Self. There are no distinctions, no differences in the Self. Nothing is separate from the Self. You cannot find a single atom, a single thought that is apart from the Self. All is the Self.

None of this is Your Business

Sri Annamalai Swami

Suppose you are walking down a busy road. You encounter all kinds of people doing all kinds of things. Little conversations are going on in one place. Perhaps workmen are digging a hole somewhere. Inside a store a customer may be arguing about the price of some goods, while in the middle of the road there may be a crowd of people congregating around an accident victim. None of this is your business, but there is always a possibility that you will get interested in some or all of these activities and forget the reason why you are out on the street yourself. Don't get excited by anything you see and hear. Just walk steadily towards your destination.

Your vasanas are all the sideshows in your head that can drag your attention away from your main business, which is being aware of the Self. If you have no interest in them, you will walk straight to your goal. If something temporarily distracts your attention, bring yourself back by asking yourself, 'Who is interested in all this? Who is getting interested in this distraction?' This will deflate the distracting desire and it will bring you back to an awareness of your true purpose.

Remember, nothing that happens in the mind is you, and none of it is your business. 

You don't have to worry about thoughts that rise up inside you. It is enough that you remember that the thoughts are not you.

Q: That goes for all kinds of thoughts?

AS: Whatever kind of thought arises, have the same reaction: 'Not me; not my business'. It can a good thought or a bad thought. Treat them all the same way. To whom are these thoughts arising? To you. That means that you are not the thought.

You are the Self. Remain as the Self, and don't latch onto anything that is not the Self.

Ignore Thoughts

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: I want to ask Swamiji a question. I want to relax more into the present and surrender to Bhagavan's will, but I am not sure that this is really within my power. In Swamiji's book, talk number five, Swamiji gave this answer: 'According to one's prarabdha, the efforts that are destined to happen will arise in one's mind.' 

This is an extremely significant remark for me. As I understand it, all the activities that happen in this world happen according to Bhagavan's will. But the thoughts that instigate the actions also seem to come from Bhagavan, and are also predetermined.

AS: Yes, everything comes from Bhagavan. All our activities play themselves out as a manifestation of the divine will. Our karma is part of this destiny. 

Q: OK. But I would still like to relaz in the present and surrender to Bhagavan's will. I find that throughout the day thoughts are coming up. A thought comes up: 'I want to realize the Self.' I remind myself, 'Here and now I am the Self. The desire does not come from the Self, because the Self has no need of realizing itself. So this must just be my vasanas coming up. I will ignore this thought.'

I cannot help this particular sequence of thoughts arising because swami has said that these thoughts manifesting in that particular order is Bhagavan's will, my destiny. I might think that I am choosing a particular option or not, but that choice ultimately seems to be incorporated in my destiny. As I watch these thoughts arise, I feel that there is nothing I can do to end them, execute them, or indulge in them. I can surrender and watch them, but it doesn't seem that I can do anything more than that.

AS: Your thoughts arise on a moment-to-money basis because of your vasanas, but it is a mistake to think that you can do nothing about them. You can be interested in them, or you can ignore them. If you show interest in them, they will persist and you will get caught up in them. If you ignore them and keep your attention on the source, they will not develop. And when they don't develop, they disappear.

In  who am I? Bhagavan compared this process to laying siege to a fort. If you cut off, one by one, the heads of the thoughts as they come out of the fort of the mind, sooner or later there will be none left. The way to do this is by self-enquiry. As each thought rises, you ask yourself, "To whom does this thought appear?" If you are vigilant in doing this, the forest of thoughts will lessen and lessen until there are none left. When the thoughts have gone, mind will sink into its source and experience that source.

Fasting: Starving the Mind of Thoughts

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: Is fasting beneficial? I have heard that thoughts diminish when one restricts one's food.

AS: This may happen, but one should be careful not to take it to extreme lengths. Bhagavan said that sattvic food in moderate quantities was the best external aid for sadhaks. Starving oneself will not produce long term benefits. Bhagavan also advised that we should starve the mind of thoughts rather than starve the body of food. We need to keep the body in good health in order to do good sadhana. Depriving it of food and making it weak is not a step in the right direction.

One of Bhagavan's devotees, Lakshman Sharma, was a great advocate of naturopathy and fasting. He was a good devotee who wrote an excellent commentary on Ulladu Narpadu. Bhagavan gave him many lessons on this work, and Lakshman Sharma's commentary incorporated the explanations that Bhagavan himself gave.

During the 1940s a boy of about twenty years of age came from London. A bomb blast had affected his hearing. Lakshman Sharma wanted to treat him through naturopathy. Usually this involves going on a fast, although there are several other aspects to the treatment as well. The boy was put on a fast of several days, but unfortunately in this case there was no improvement. The fasting treatment was extended but the boy became weaker and weaker. Eventually, he became so weak, he died. Right until the end the boy was expecting that this treatment would cure him, but in the end it brought his death.

These treatments have to be taken carefully. There are many people who will not be benefited by them.

Q: So we should make sure that we eat regularly?

AS: We should not force ourselves to eat if we are not hungry. Eat food when you feel hungry. Food always tastes better if you have an appetite for it. Eating food at times directed by others is far less satisfactory. If we take food at times when we have an appetite for it, we won't get sick. This is not just my advice. Avvayar, a great Tamil saint, gave this advice in one of her poems, and Thiruvalluvar, another of our great poet-saints, wrote, "If you take your food only when your are hungry, you won't get sick. If you live like this, you will never have to go out in search of medicine."

Final Thoughts and Re-birth

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: What do you think of the common belief that a person's final thoughts determine his next birth?

AS: A rich man, who was very involved in his worldly affairs, was dying in his bed. 

He called to his wife, "Where is my oldest son?"

She replied, "He is standing besides you, at the head of the bed."

The wife was a meditative woman, and she also knew that her husband was about to die.

"Don't worry about worldly affairs at this time", she advised. "Relax peacefully into the Self. That's the most important thing at this time."

The husband had other things on his mind. "Where is my second son?" he asked.

"He is also beside the bed. Just try to keep quiet."

"Then where is my youngest son?" demanded the man. "I also need to know where he is."

"He is here in the room with you. We are all here with you."

"So who is looking after our shop if everyone is here?" asked the dying man, and a few seconds later he passed away.

This is how it is in life. If you spend your life with worldly thoughts, these will be the thoughts that fill your mind at the time of your death. But if your life is devoted to sadhana, to attain an inner peace, then, at the moment of your death, this will be the state that you die in.

Keep Your Mind on the Self

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: It's not possible for some of us to make this kind of commitment. We have work to do, responsibilities in the world.

AS: Sadhaks should only work enough to maintain the body. Try to avoid unnecessary activities. Less work is good. Devote yourself to your sadhana all the time. You dissipate your desire for the Self by undertaking all kinds of useless activities that waste your time and lead to attachments. You think that your life is endless and that you can put off meditation till a later date. With this kind of attitude, you will die filled with regress, not filled with peace.

If you have to engage in activity to support yourself or your family, then do it, but always be aware of the Self while you work. While you are doing that work keep your thoughts a hundred percent on the Self.

You are what you think you are. You become what you think. If you think of the Self all the time, that is what you will become. If you live and die with thoughts of work and family, you will be reborn in a place with more work and more family business to worry about.