Part 3: The Only Way Out Is In🔗

I can't begin to thank You enough for showering so much of love on me. But I often feel that I am not worthy enough. Am I worthy of so much?

Be very clear: there is nothing called worthy or unworthy. These thoughts are simply an expression of passive ego – the inferior ego. Just understand that the master is a river; he flows and offers himself choicelessly to the people he encounters in his flow. How much you want to receive is up to you. The master's energy is limitless. It is your decision as to how much you want to take from him.

The master is like an endless ocean. It is completely your choice to decide how deep you want to go. The master's waves are always trying to pull you in deeper, but it is up to you whether you want to resist it or go along with it. The choice is yours. But whatever you do, the Master will not say a word. He will only allow you to do what you decide.

One more thing: to love the Master is an opportunity which not everyone gets. You see, love arises out of a deep feeling of oneness and gratitude. Love has nothing to do with beauty or outward appearance. It is an emotion that happens unconditionally.

So what you must understand is that you are worthy and everyone is. In fact you are worthy of much, much more than you are already receiving.

But how much love you get is up to you. It all depends on how receptive you are.

All this time that I have been with You in the ashram, I always did as I was told. But now, it feels like it is all up to me. But who am I to know what to do?

Actually, everyone wants to be relieved of all responsibilities. It is very natural. But the moment the responsibility is gone, we tend to feel uncomfortable.

On the other hand, there are people who are more than willing to take responsibility. This is because they are at the same time taking away your freedom. And this is what everyone is mad about: power. When you take responsibility upon yourself, you are at the same time taking freedom away from others.

But here in the ashram, things are different. No one will dictate you. Initially, when you come, you are bound to do as you are told. This is bound to happen because you are still new to the whole atmosphere. You don't know the ropes yet. But over time, when you become accustomed to the way things work, it is completely natural to start listening to yourself and abiding by your own rules.

This can work either for you or against you. It is perfectly alright to have enough freedom for yourself; in fact it is necessary. But this is all to a limit. There should be certain guidelines to follow. I don't even want to say rules, because they are not rules. Rules are only for people who don't know how to choose wisely. But here you have a choice. That is why I say guidelines and not rules. There are just enough guidelines to live in a blissful way. And all these guidelines are simply made with the same motive - to live happily. There is no other reason for the instructions that are given to you.

And I tell you honestly: the easiest way to live in freedom is to follow these few guidelines.

Just look into your lives. When you have many rules, you feel bound, you simply want to escape. But when you finally do escape, you feel even more bound. The problem here is that you have so much freedom that you don't know how to handle it.

This is why in the ashram, if I want to teach any of them a lesson, I simply give them freedom! There is nothing more that I need to do. It is the best punishment! When I relieve them of all of their guidelines, initially, they will be so thankful to me. Only after a couple of days, the fellow will understand what he has gotten himself into! If freedom is given to a person who is not ready, it will be just a torture.

But let you be clear: freedom is not a bad thing; in fact it is a beautiful thing. If freedom is happening on its own, it is beautiful. This is the way it should happen. But if you are forcing freedom upon yourself, it is just suppressing your responsibilities. This is not the way it should happen.

Allow freedom to happen on its own accord; only then will it be an amazing experience. And when I say amazing, I mean amazing! It will throw you out of your mind…into no-mind!

Yes.

I have a small doubt. You said that we are reborn every moment. But then another time You said that we die every moment. So now, I am wondering: am I dying or being reborn?

You are both dying and being reborn, at the same time, all the time. Both are happening simultaneously. Each new moment comes, and then in less than a second, it becomes the past. And what is the past? It is nothing more than death. Each moment goes on bringing the future. And what is the future? It is nothing more than life. In between the past and future, there is a small gap called the present. This is the transition point where both life and death meet.

You may have asked this question thinking that I will give you a very simple reply. No, it is a question that deals with your very existence. It has to do with what is happening to you every moment of your life.

We are both dying and being reborn every moment. But we are unaware of what is happening within us. It happens all the time. We are unaware of the life force entering our body, as well as the life force leaving our body. Just see how unaware we are! It is a major transition; it only looks small. This is why we fail to notice it.

We are never actually in our bodies. We are always outside of ourselves. We pay attention to everything in the external world, but never take the time to look within ourselves. If you are at your center for even a single moment, you will notice this rebirth. To notice this will change your whole perspective of life. You will no longer see death as something far away from you. You will see death as right here; happening right now. And the very fear will disappear for you because it is happening all the time. And you can't call it death as you know it anymore!

Death is not death as you know it; it is just the life force which leaves your body. You start looking for a different body to express yourself. And this is what your so-called death is. Death has actually always been coming, but just because the life force did not leave you, you continued to live. To tell you honestly, you are reborn with every breath; you exhale death and inhale life.

Actually, if you see, your inhalation is very full, very alive. You do it fully, without holding back. But just see your exhalation. It is very shallow too shallow. It is not done as a total exhalation. When you inhale, you become fresh and alive; ready to move around. When you exhale, you become completely relaxed. You become quiet and still. It is death - nothing more.

Just try this. Inhale once, fully. Now, exhale totally.

You will notice that there is no holding back for you when it comes to inhalation. But you held back when you exhaled. This is because of the fear of death. Exhaling means death; it is death. It is relaxing into Existence.

It is like this: when you inhale, you are active; it is like you are preparing your bed. But when you exhale, you finally sleep in your bed.

The problem is that your mind cannot handle relaxation. It begins to feel uncomfortable. It will not allow you to sleep on this bed of yours! It always wants to be engaged in some activity or the other. But you go on making all possible excuses like, 'I'm so fed up! I need a vacation!'

Nonsense! And what vacation will you have? You don't even know how to relax, and you want a vacation? In your so-called vacation, what will you do? You will sit and worry there also! So what is the use of going to some beach and worrying? You might as well sit in the house and enjoy your worrying!

And this is always happening. You don't know how to relax. This is why there is such a huge suppression of death, of exhalation. The only reason is that we don't know how to relax.

Now you will ask, 'How to relax?'

Simply become aware. That's all! Become aware of every breath. Watch every exhalation and every inhalation. Don't miss even a single part of your breath.

Awareness brings in clarity. And worrying comes only when there is no clarity.

So with awareness, clarity comes; and with clarity, relaxation happens. Only when you have fully relaxed, complete exhalation will happen to you. I am not saying that the life force will stop. No! You will be completely balanced, that's all.

When this balance is there, you will be energetic and healthy, as well as relaxed and passive. You will be lively about things and at the same time be untouched by whatever happens. This is the way to be.

Yes.

I always think that I know. But I have come to find out that I don't know. I don't know anything. And even though I understand this, I still feel as if I know. Can You please give me an explanation for this?

There is actually no need to fall into a state such as I don't know. There are two things: either you know or you don't know. If you know, it is perfectly alright; if you don't know, then it is even better! But why are you sitting and unnecessarily worrying and simply creating problems for yourself thinking that you know or you don't know?

If you do know, be happy with that. Live happily. And if you don't know, then be happy with that also.

Even if you are not clear about whether you know or not, it does not matter. After all, whether you know or not is not the problem. When you don't know, you have the desire to know; when you know, you have the desire to feel as if you don't know! Either way, the desire will be there. So what can be done?

You must drop the very urge, the very craving to reach the state of knowing or not knowing. How to drop it? Be in between both of these states, that's all. Find a balance. You should know and the same time, not know. Now you will be wondering how to do this!

Do not think, 'I know a lot, but I think I know too much. I wish that I didn't know.' And at the same time, you should not think, 'I don't know anything, I wish that I knew. But in a way it is good that I don't know…'

These types of thoughts will be running through your head, is it not? So what I am telling you to do is to be in-between the two. Then automatically both will drop and it won't matter anymore. You will simply be spontaneous, that's all.

Simply be. Be in the moment. You should know, but don't know at the same time. And if the effort is made, the balance has to come.

It will come.

Yes.

I have been Your disciple for some time and You have given me so much. You have brought joy into my life. I have not been directly associated with You though; I have not gotten the chance to speak with You personally too often. But in the past week that I have been in the ashram continuously, I have been feeling the strong need to get personal guidance from You. And this strong need was reinforced during the sitting that I had with You this morning. Can You please comment on this?

You see: with the way you are growing, with the way gratitude is flowing from you, there is no need for personal guidance. In fact, you need to be more and more open to the impersonal Existence.

And I am with you, so why do you bother? For you, I am not needed, only you are needed. You are a service oriented person. Service is your path. Do not feel bad when you do not have some sort of special attention from me.

I always tell people: if you are continuously around me, if you receive attention from me, you will be with me. But if you are in some corner of the ashram, cleaning some bathroom, I will be with you.

So now I tell you, 'I am with you'. What more do you want?

Yes, to be with the master is beautiful. In fact, many people crave to be with Him. So much of confusion and politics happens amongst the devotees just to be with the master; so much of possessiveness and comparison takes place.

And after all, poor guy, how many people can he give attention to at one time?! And you fellows will be sitting and thinking, 'He is giving so much of space to him, and not to me. He must love him more.' Nonsense!

You see, as I said before, some people are service oriented. To these people, the master's attention will not be important, but spreading his mission will be. The mission will be their greatest love. Yes, these people love the master as well. Otherwise, how could they love his mission. But these people do not bother if the master gives space or not. And I tell you: your path is service. And you will see in your service that I will be with you. You may not be with me, but I will be with you. You will be able to feel my presence very clearly in each and everything that you do, every moment. In fact, you will be able to feel my presence in my absence and my absence in my presence. And this is what the master is. He is neither present nor absent; he just is.

So, never think that he is giving space to others and not to you. Never think this way. Understand, the master knows the energy of each and every person. If you need to be with the master in order to grow, it will happen. But if your growth will happen in the master's absence, he will see to it that it happens. So the master will behave accordingly with you. And it is not that he likes someone better than the other. Be very clear: it is only because he loves you that he is taking the time to work on you. Otherwise, why should he bother? He is working on you only because he wants to see you transformed.

And the master/disciple relationship is the deepest relationship that can ever happen on the planet Earth. You see: the master is neither mother, nor father; he is neither a beloved, nor a child; he is not a friend and he is not even the Guru. He is all of these and something more. All of these many dimensions will be felt at some point in time. And sometimes, you will feel all of them at the same time.

It is a relationship like no other. So do not miss me just because of an attention-need. You must be very clear: I am with you. Lose yourself in service to the mission and you will see me there with you.

Yes.

Is there a relationship between silence and bliss? Can You speak about this?

Does silence come first and everything else follows? Is silence the only thing that is important?

Actually, there is no difference between silence and bliss. They are just two names for the same thing. To be silent is to be blissful. It may give a different explanation in the dictionary, but in reality, at the experiential level, they are one and the same.

When you become silent, you will have no worries, no inner chatter. There will be no tension whatsoever. If all of these emotions are there, how can you be silent? So, when all of these emotions and problems are gone and silence enters, then naturally bliss will follow! They are almost the same thing because they happen at the same time.

One thing: the silence which happens to you should not be forced. It should simply arise without effort. If you force the mind to be silent, there will only be emptiness; there will be no bliss. It will be like the silence of a well kept and dead garden.

The meditative silence is different. This is the silence which I am talking about. This is the silence where bliss simply oozes out of every cell of your body. It is the silence wherein your very blood boils with bliss.

So, if your silence is not bringing bliss, be very clear that your silence is not what I am talking about. It is just forced; it is not spontaneous. In meditation, silence comes completely by itself. There is no need for you to force it onto yourself.

I will tell you how to do this: Just go on watching the mind. Watch every thought, every impulse. Do not go behind a thought and do not stop the thought flow. You just remain a witness to whatever the mind wants to do. Do this without even the least bit of expectation that silence will come. Only when you do this will silence come, like a breeze from the sky.

It will come and never leave you.

Yes.

I have been noticing that the longing within me to go beyond the mind and experience something a bit more from what I already know has been growing and growing every day. But it is beginning to seem like such a long process; does it have to be this way?

It is only when you succeed does everything feel meaningless. In failure, there is still hope that everything will work out. But in success there is no hope. When you have already attained everything in the external world that needs to be attained, you feel as if you have come to a dead end; that there is nothing more to achieve, and you begin to wonder where else to go. This is what I call 'depression of success'.

In this depression, you simply feel hopeless. You feel as if there is nowhere else to go. And this feeling rises to such a peak, that it all of a sudden becomes clear to you: the thing that was missing in you was yourself. You begin to realize the meaninglessness of the whole outer world quest. And I tell you honestly, to be in such a state is the greatest blessing. Depression of success is the greatest blessing. Now you may be wondering, 'how can depression be a blessing?' While in this depression, you understand the meaninglessness of your whole life. You understand that what you have been running for all the time was of no use. You run and run until you have nowhere else to go. You have come to a dead end. Then what happens? You turn inwards.

You just stop the whole rat race. It becomes clear to you all of a sudden. You understand what the mind has done to you. You understand the nonsensical emotions that it goes on creating in you. You understand the unnecessary suffering that it creates. And this one understanding is enough to take you beyond the mind. At this point there will be no question of how to go beyond the mind; you simply cannot remain in the mind any longer.

See as of now, you are only within the boundaries of the mind because you are not clear. You do not understand that all of your sufferings are caused by it. Because you don't understand, you go on throwing the responsibility of your sufferings onto someone else. You say, 'It is all because of her; it is all because of him.' This is nonsense! You are not seeing that the cause of your suffering is the one thing that you trust most – your mind.

Once you understand that it is the mind's work that has created all these negative emotions in you, the mind will simply disappear; it has to disappear. Then there will be no need for this longing to go beyond the mind; there will be no desire for it. You don't have to do anything else just this one understanding is enough. Understand the cause for your suffering; nothing more is needed; you will simply drop the mind. There will be no second thought about it. You will drop the mind and the mind will drop you.

First of all, be very clear: your desire to go beyond the mind is from the mind. Your longing to go beyond the mind is from the mind. Your urge to have some deep spiritual experience is from the mind. When you realize this, where does your so-called longing stand? Nowhere at all! Your mind wants to drop itself, yet it is your mind that is fighting back. Do you understand how the mind is tricking you?

It is the nature of the mind to ask for all possible forms of nonsensical things. The mind will always ask for more; that is its very nature. The mind is the only thing that will never be fulfilled. There is no such thing as fulfilling the mind, yet the mind is always looking to be fulfilled.

So, try to understand what the mind is. Look at the way in which it works. Look into every corner of your mind and try to see exactly where all of these passions, all of these desires actually come from. Only when you understand where they come from will you actually understand that they are from the mind. Otherwise you will just sit here and look at me and nod your head. And then after the talk is over, what will you do? You will go back home and when I ask you tomorrow what I spoke about today, you will simply look at me! So I want you to first understand these truths for yourself. When a desire comes up, when anger arises, see exactly where it is coming from. Only when you become clear about this, will you be able to drop the mind.

It is like this: when you see that your house is on fire, what do you do? You do not sit and contemplate; you do not consult any ancient scripture for guidance. No! You simply jump out of the house. Whether you jump out of a door or window doesn't matter for you. Your house is on fire, so you get out! There is nothing more to it.

In the same way, understand that your mind is the culprit. It is the reason for all of your suffering, yet you still tag along with it. Understand this. Then you will automatically drop it.

So, understand what the mind is; understand what it is doing to you. This one understanding is enough; the mind will be dropped with no effort whatsoever.

Yes.

When I first started meditating, I had many beautiful experiences. They were very intense. But time has passed and I am no longer having these experiences. And yes, I can feel the expectation within me. And I also realize that in the beginning, when I was having experiences, I had no expectations at all. Now, I am wondering where these experiences have gone. Also, how can I become innocent again with no expectations?

See, your question itself has the answer inside. You said that when you did have experiences you had no expectations. So, don't you see? It is these expectations that are stopping you from experiencing anything more.

And you are looking for a method, aren't you? You have asked, 'How can I become innocent again with no expectations?'

To tell you honestly, if I give you a method, it will only make things more complicated. And this is only because you will be doing the technique with the expectation to experience something which cannot be expected!

This is the problem, with not only you but with almost everyone who meditates. You have an experience and then you go on wanting more. Enjoy the experience and simply move on. Don't try to cling to it. One more thing: are you happy or not when you meditate even without experiences? Obviously you are, otherwise you would have dropped meditation long back! So if you are enjoying, just enjoy the fact that you are enjoying! Do not bother about where these experiences have gone. What is the use of bothering about it? What are you getting out of holding on to it?

Life itself is like a river. It is like this: when you keep your hands in a river and try to grab the water, try to posses it, what happens? The water will not stay with you. It will vanish right before your eyes. But if put your hands in the river and allow the water to flow over them, what happens? If you keep you palms open, what happens? The water will simply flow through you. And only when you allow it to do this, will you have all of the water.

Your experiences happen in the same way. If you allow your experiences to come and go whenever needed, they will do so freely. But if you go on wondering about how to make them come back to you, they will only move away from you; they will never come towards you. Do you understand?

You like meditating, don't you? You love the silence. Then, what more do you need? Feel good that you have this silence. Feel refreshed with this silence.

Initially, it will be there; the desire for more experiences than you already have will be there. But when you go deeper, when your meditation takes you deeper, you will forget these experiences. The silence will be so alive, so fresh, that experiences won't seem to matter.

Yes, if experiences do come, you should enjoy them but then move on. You should not cling to them. But even if you crave for silence, be sure that it will not happen. You will only be preventing it from happening.

So, enjoy what is happening to you right now. Do not cling on to something which has already happened. What is happening to you is by itself beautiful; so enjoy it!

Just move deeper into it.

You cannot expect the unexpected. It has to simply happen. The whole of Existence is waiting for you to experience it. Just move into it with no expectations whatsoever.

Yes.

I have found that when I sit in Your presence listening to You, I feel much more silence than I do when I meditate. And then when You stop talking, everything just stops and I get a glimpse of the true meditative state. So, my question is, why do I become silent in Your presence more easily than I do when I meditate?

Actually, this is something that happens not only to you, but to many people. Even people who are not in my presence but simply listen to a recording of my discourses; even they feel the same way.

Almost everyone who has sat with me and listened to me even once has felt this. And I am not like any other speaker. Have you heard even a single speaker speak the way I do? Even if we talk about exactly the same thing, will it feel the same? No! The whole mood is different. This is because other speakers have a different purpose altogether. They have rehearsed what they are going to say. They are just repeating the same thing that they have already rehearsed. There is no spontaneity in what they say.

But with me, it is totally different. Talk with some of the people who are continuously around me; they will tell you. When I am sitting in the car getting ready to go for the talk, I ask them what the topic for the discourse I am going to deliver is. So there is no question of preparing at all.

And this is why my talks are so different. It creates a different mood altogether. I myself don't know the next word that I am going to speak. I just watch myself and the words flow from somewhere. This is the reason why there are no mistakes; no mistakes because there is no preparation. A mistake will only happen if the person has prepared. And I don't forget anything either. A person forgets only when he has tried to remember something. And to speak with no preparation is such a big freedom. You don't know what words will come next. You, the speaker are also like the audience waiting and listening to what is going to be said next!

I am not at all concerned about whether the flow is there or not. Normal speakers will bother about their consistency, about being logical. But it is not like that for me. I am not bothered about the flow because the flow will flow by itself. If trust is there, a deep trust about the flow, about the words, they will come. Nothing has to be done; the words will come automatically. You must just have the receptivity and the trust that the flow will happen on its own.

You see: the purpose for my words is itself different. The only reason why normal speakers create words is to influence or convert you into their ideology. But my purpose is different. I only create words for the gaps that come in between each word. This is the only reason why I am able to talk continuously. The words which I speak are not important, only the gaps are. I am not bothered about what I speak. This is why I often sound totally illogical. I am not at all concerned with the words; only the gaps. The words are only to convince you. They are only there to make you stay on and listen. I do not mean, 'stay on and listen to the words'. No! Stay on and listen to the gaps.

If you can become aware of these gaps, you can simply be put into the gap. These gaps are only silence, nothing more. But you only cling onto the words; you are not aware of the gaps which hold the silence. And then you will ask, 'How to become silent?' I have been sitting there in front of you for hours together giving you so many opportunities to grab the silence, and you ask me how to become silent!

What can be done? You must become aware of the silence; this is the only way to receive it.

I am not telling you to ignore my words either. You should listen to that as well; it will do you some good. But be fully aware of the gaps that come. Do not miss even a single one. This is the way for the mind to really become silent.

But somehow, we always think that it is not possible for the mind to remain silent. But how can you not think that it is possible without even trying? You must give it a try. Actually, it is not that we do not know how to remain silent. I am giving you the methods all the time, so there is no question of not knowing. It is just laziness. You want to remain nice and secure; you do not want to move. You don't want to take the initial step further. You expect the step to come to you! You must go, you must try, only then is anything possible.

I have had people come to me and ask, 'Please put me into a meditative state; please silence my mind.'

Understand: I cannot force you to become silent; that is your job. I can only give you a device to become silent. I can only give you the key. You must open the door. I have played with the keys and I had a bundle of about 1000 keys with only one door. I had to play with each key; I had to try each key until I came to the right one. And only then did the door open. But for you it is different. I am here to give you the key. I am giving you the key right now. All you need to do is open the door.

So understand: my presence is not the only thing that is required to put you into silence. The gaps are enough. The gaps in between the words are enough. The gaps are there only for you to grasp, to become aware of. Because you miss the gaps in between the words, the long gaps in between the sentences will be added. But you miss that too! What can be done?

So at least now, don't miss. Don't miss the gaps. Become aware of the gaps.

(a long pause) Were you aware? (He laughs)

Alright, thank you.

When I experience awareness, I feel intoxicated. It is almost as if I am drunk with bliss, with the divine. But it is not drunkenness at all; it is not at all unconsciousness. It is total awareness. Is this just an illusion, or is it really the divine?

First, you must understand one thing: in your English dictionary, intoxication and divinity are two completely different things, but at the experiential level, they are the same. You are right; it is not at all unawareness. It is an overflowing of awareness.

Initially, you will feel as if you are drunk in bliss, but you will be able to see the difference very clearly. Normally, in drunkenness, you will not have enough awareness to understand that you are drunk. But on the level which you are experiencing, even during the experience, you will be able to feel the drunkenness. This is the difference.

You begin to feel intoxicated with consciousness. It is so much that your body cannot withstand it. It is bigger than you. And you then feel as if it is simply overflowing from every pore of your being. In the beginning, it comes as such a sudden rush that you feel as if you will lose control. This is why you say that you feel drunk.

This is because when you are experiencing intense awareness, you simply forget the mind. The whole world seems dream-like and beautiful. You lose your ego, you lose your mind and you lose your worries. This is why it feels as if you are intoxicated. The same sort of experience happens to you during intoxication, but there is a difference. It will not be blissful. And even if it is, it will wear off in a few hours and you become depressed. But this is not the case with awareness; it is not the case with consciousness. Once you become truly aware, it will not leave you; there will be growth in your consciousness. Even when the experience passes, clarity will still remain; you will not fall into depression.

You see: any normal drug will just make you unconscious and that is why it feels as if you are walking on the clouds. But meditation brings awareness; it brings consciousness. But understand: the reason for you feeling as if you are overflowing with something is because consciousness is so intense that you are bound to feel as if it doesn't fit inside you. You begin to feel as if consciousness is simply flowing from you. And in the beginning it may feel overwhelming. Yes, and this is why you are using the word 'intoxicating'.

Drugs only make you unconscious; they only give you a few hours of forgetfulness. And then once you come out of it, you become even more depressed than you were when you started. And you begin to crave what was once upon a time there.

What you are experiencing is the Divine. It is awareness, pure awareness. Awareness cuts the very root of misery. It cuts the very thread from which misery starts.

It is a beautiful experience. There is no illusion in it. What you are experiencing is not an illusion. It is completely experiential. Actually, it has nothing to do with intoxicants. It is only in the beginning that you will feel like this. And the truth is that this is the real illusion. Feeling intoxicated is the real illusion. It is just like the cover of a brand new car. It may look different from what it is on the inside. But only when you take off the cover and drive it around you will understand what a beautiful thing it is.

So take this experience and drive it for some time. Give it time and you will understand its reality; rather, its reality will be revealed to you.

Yes.

Every time You speak on our unique individuality, I am touched. But I think I am sometimes getting confused between individuality and personality. Is individuality something to do with genetics or is it something to do with our very essence? And is there any technique that You can teach us to come to know about our individuality?

Actually, this is a common misunderstanding. Every-one misunderstands individuality and personality.

Personality is that which is given to you by society. It is all the culture and civilization which society has given you. Basically it is the input which you have received from other people. It is this input that creates your personality.

If you have observed small children, you will understand. Their personalities are not yet developed. This is why they are so full, so sincere in everything that they do. They are authentic.

Try one thing: think back to your earliest memory. It would probably be when you were three or four; at the most three. Before three there is just a thick blank. You don't remember anything at all. It is not that you weren't there during those three years. You were there, so why is there no memory? It is because you had no personality. During those three years, society had not yet put its marks on you. You were completely pure and total. Everything that you did, you finished then and there. You were fully in the present. There was no past or future for you then; there was only now.

You don't know who you are; you don't know your individuality. For you to actually know yourself, you must dig deep through all of the dirt, all of the conditioning which you have accumulated. You have to become a child again. Unless this happens, unless you put your whole personality aside, individuality will not happen. Individuality happens only when personality vanishes. When you go on holding on to your personality, you will completely misunderstand me.

You see: with your personality, you are seeing through your logic. All your books will come inside your head. Then the situation at hand will simply be like reading a book. If this is the case, sit and happily read your books; what is the use of coming and uselessly sitting in front of me? Drop all your nonsensical personality! Only when you do this, will there even be a chance of your individuality being revealed to you.

You will only misunderstand me if you look through the eyes of your personality. Your mind will make its own interpretations of whatever I say.

And you don't know anything of yourself except for your personality. What do you know of yourself? If I ask you who you are, what is the first thing that comes into your mind? First thing, you will think of your name or age or your gender. Just see how much you identify yourself with your personality! But this is not what you are. First of all, you came into this world without a name, so how can you only be a small five letter word?

So as of now, all that you know about yourself is your personality. But it is your individuality that you are, but have yet to realize. Meditation is the route to understanding who you are. It is an effort to get rid of the personality and reach your individuality. And this is the real you. It is what you have been since eternity. You have had your individuality since you were born and even before you were born. It is your essential consciousness that has been covered with so much of dirt and now you have to dig it up. And this is what meditation is about: digging through your social conditionings until you finally reach what has to be reached. It is a process of going on digging until you reach your individuality. You see: every life adds more and more dirt; the pile becomes deeper and deeper.

So understand: your individuality is immortal. It is your personality that is mortal. Your personality depends on other people. And this is the reason that you are afraid of other people and why you always bother about what the other person thinks. You are only bothered about opinions and appreciation from others. You never simply relax and allow people to think as they want. That is the problem.

So, your personality is the culprit for creating all these false ideas. It is the reason for all the nonsense which you call reality. So remember one thing: whatever you have learned, whatever society has taught you is simply false. It is not reality; it is not you. It is only what you think you are. It is your personality. So now, you must find your individuality; you must find your innocence.

You said, But I think I am sometimes getting confused between the two: individuality and personality… No ma, you are always confused about the two, not sometimes! I say this because if you knew your individuality even for a second, there would never be this confusion. Once you have experienced the real, how can you go back to thinking that the false is real? Once you have known the real, the false would have disappeared from you altogether. So be clear: if you are caught in this 'sometimes', what you have thought about as 'individuality' was simply your personality projected in a different way.

If you have known your individuality even for a moment, it is enough. Even a single second is enough to finish off your personality. Once your individuality is revealed to you, your personality simply cannot come back again.

Individuality is real; it is uniqueness; it is freedom; it liberates you. But personality is societal; it is pseudo; it is binding. Express your individuality; become a unique experience that you truly are.

Thank you.