Your Questions Answered🔗

Q: Dear master, is it necessary to renounce the world to realize the self?

To realize the self, there is only one thing you must be willing to renounce: ignorance.

Self-realization has nothing to do with renouncing the world. To run away from the world is just as bad as clinging to it; in both cases it is evident that the world is controlling your actions. Aversion to the world is as much a product of ignorance as attachment to it. They are just two sides of the same coin.

A person can live in a cave in the mountains and be obsessed with sansar (worldliness), while another can live in the world and yet be completely detached from its pull and push. To take sannyas is not to renounce the world, but simply to renounce both attachment and aversion to the world. The very same life, when seen through the mist of ignorance, is sansar, and when seen in the clear light of self-awareness, becomes sannyas.

It is true, sannyasins always lead a simple life, untouched by sansar. But for them, the renouncing of attachment and aversion is not an effort. When self-realization awakens, renouncement happens naturally.

The first step towards sannyas is to become aware of your inner conflict between attachment and aversion. As you witness it, you become aware that there is a core inside you that is beyond this conflict, a being that is completely unconcerned with the questions of 'yes' and 'no'. This is your self, eternal and immutable. In the blaze of this awakening, all that is superfluous simply drops away like dead leaves from a tree. What remains is the completely essential - this is sannyas.

True sannyas is to live like a lotus in a lake, perfectly at ease in the muddy water, but untouched and unsullied by it.

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A master and his disciple were on their way from one village to the next.

At the border of the villages flowed a shallow stream, which they usually crossed by wading through it.

This time, they discovered that due to heavy rains, the stream had swollen into a small river, too deep to wade across.

The disciple was alarmed, and enquired of the master, "Should we attempt to cross this river, master?"

Replied the master with a twinkle in his eye, "Certainly you should cross the river, my child. Just remember not to get your feet wet!"

This is the true meaning of sannyas. When you can cross the river of sansar, but the sansar can no longer wet you, you have found sannyas.

Q: Beloved master, how can we surrender the ego, when this wanting to surrender is itself an expression of the ego?

A question to you: How are you going to surrender the ego, when it does not exist?

Suppose you are sitting in a dark room. You want the darkness to go out. Can you push it out? Can you fight the darkness and force it to leave the room? No! No matter how hard you try, you are ultimately going to be defeated - and that too by something which does not exist! Ego is like darkness; it has no positive existence. Just like darkness is simply the absence of light, the ego is nothing but the absence of awareness.

To struggle, to kill the ego, is like struggling to push darkness out of the room. To really expel the darkness, what you need to do is to forget all about dealing with the darkness and focus your energy on light instead.

A small story

Just bring a small lamp into the room, and you will find that the darkness has fled on its own! So, I tell you to forget all about ego. Instead, focus on bringing a lamp of awareness into your being. When your entire consciousness has become a flame, you will find that the ego is no more.

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The ego is an illusion. You cannot surrender it when you are unaware because you don't know how. Of course, you cannot surrender it when you become aware either - because then you realize that there is nothing left to surrender!

What you have heard, read, been taught, to 'surrender the ego in order to attain self-realization', is an utterly nonsensical idea. It can happen only the other way round. Self-realization dawns, and suddenly you cannot find the ego anymore. The surrender has already happened, just like that.

However, I am glad that the question has arisen in your being. The ego is the root cause for all your anxieties, sorrows, tension. It is your doorway to hell. To actively feel that you want to drop the ego, to feel the need to be rid of this burden, is itself a step towards awareness. It shows that you are stirring from your sleep!

Further, if you are in the habit of praying, you can pray intensely that your intelligence gives way for the ego to drop, and it will drop. This very prayer will show you the intensity of your desire to drop your ego and also facilitate it to drop.

Q: Beloved master, whenever I am in your presence, all questions disappear and everything seems possible. But when I am away from you, all the familiar doubts creep in. Why does this happen and what can I do about it?

If a question disappears on its own in my presence, then it is time to realize that it was not a true question at all; it was merely a play of the mind.

When you are with me, the mind is no more in control - you simply flow into meditation. You become a loving, serene silence. In this state, only a question that is truly your question, one that is completely relevant to you, will still remain with you.

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In my presence, you become so intensely aware, so completely present, that there is no space for questions to arise. When you leave my presence, the mind is free to impose the past and the future upon your present. Your questions are a play of the past and the future upon your present.

Just like the ego, there is no point in fighting with or condemning the mind. It is a pointless struggle which you will be sure to lose. Instead, it is enough to be aware that this is the very nature of the mind; it can be expected to behave in no other way. It is bound to bring in anxiety, confusion, doubt. Just to be conscious of this is enough. Do not pass judgment on the mind for its inane activities - even to get angry with your mind is to lose your energy to it.

As you witness the workings of the mind, you will slowly become aware that you are not the mind - you are more than the mind; you are the watcher. Once deprived of your energy, the mind cannot go on! In the place of the chaos of thoughts that you call your mind, a clear, intense consciousness will arise. At that moment, all questions dissolve and the mind is no more. A glimpse of this is what you experience in my presence. And what I have just told you is the way to make it stay with you always - even when you are not with me! It is a slow process; give it time. It will happen.

Q: Dear master, you ask us not to suppress our natural passions. But is it right to indulge these passions?

This question points in the same direction as the earlier question on sansar vs. sannyas. On this path, you will time and again come across apparent dualities: good/bad, false/true, attachment/aversion, and suppression/ indulgence. In fact, raging inside your being is this constant conflict of opposites. Whenever a duality asserts itself, remember this rule of thumb: Existence is non-dual. Opposites do not exist. To cling to either suppression or indulgence is a sign of ignorance. After all, suppression is nothing but a reaction to indulgence. What is essential is the awareness of one's own tendencies.

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Recognize anger, recognize jealousy, and recognize lust and greed. Neither give in to these emotions nor try to suppress them. Simply attempt to know them for what they are. Keep your distance, and view your emotions as if they were strangers. You will be surprised to find that without your support, they cannot exist; they simply drop away! This may not make much sense to you when it is just someone else's experience - but through constant practice you will experience the truth for yourself.

It is only this awareness that can awaken self-knowledge, and free you of these concepts of indulgence/suppression, and of all dualities!

Q: Dearest master, you say that skepticism is a big hindrance to learning. But you also urge us to voice our doubts. Why?

You can raise questions due to either skepticism or doubt. But there is a world of difference between the two. Skepticism is a state where one refuses to believe in anything at all. Just like that! The skeptic will raise arguments just for the sake of raising them. In this sense, skepticism itself is an unconscious belief; it is a foregone negative conclusion against anything and everything. The skeptic has no opinions and no ideology of his own; he only has an argument against whatever idea you place before him. He will argue against an idea for hours, and if you present another idea that is just the opposite, he will argue against it equally emphatically! Actually, he has already settled into a permanent attitude of 'NO' towards everything. In this sense, skepticism marks the end of the journey for the learner, because with this attitude it is impossible to get anywhere. The skeptic has closed himself to all possibility of change.

Doubt, on the other hand, is a state of openness and receptivity. Doubt is an acceptance of 'I don't know, but I can learn.' This marks the beginning of the learner's pilgrimage. Doubt is the path of the seeker; it simply seeks to eliminate all that is untrue in order to perceive the truth. A man with doubt listens with respect, not with defiance. He possesses the humility of the learner. His is the attitude of 'YES'. He is only waiting to experience so that he can trust.

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When a person of sharp intellect turns to skepticism, it is a dangerous sign - because it can be very ego-fulfilling to be able to put down all ideas in an effective manner. But ultimately, the skeptic is only burning his own bridges. Especially with a master, if you adopt the attitude of skepticism, there is just no way I can get through to you. There is no point in going to a doctor just to question the value of every pill in his prescription, is there?

So ask your questions, by all means. Just watch the attitude with which you ask them!

Q: Beloved master, you tell us to 'give our all' in love. But what if the love is not appreciated or returned?

If you are truly in love, you will 'give your all' naturally. Love is an unconditional outpouring. In love, you don't stop to ask yourself whether the other person deserves your 'all'. In fact, there is no question at all of the other person's worth. Love is a gift. If you were to measure the other person's worth and give an equal and exact measure of love in return, that would simply be a bargain. It would be business, not love. In true love, this question of 'should I give my all?' would not be raised at all!

Now the issue of the love being appreciated. Tell me, what is your reason for loving? Is love a performance for which you need to be applauded? Is it not enough that you love? What is the need to look for any further reward? To ask for a returning of love is to seek some kind of control over your beloved. You refuse the other person the freedom not to love you in return. This is a kind of possessiveness, where you cage the other in the prison of your expectations. And as I keep repeating, love can never, never blossom in captivity.

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Listen carefully: there are two kinds of love - love as a quantity, and love as a quality. When love is seen as a quantity, it results in the kind of selfish little exchanges that most people make all their lives. You hold out a tightly wrapped parcel of love to your man or woman, and expect them to promptly return an equal-sized parcel to you. If your partner should choose to give her parcel to someone else, or even to just open it and spread the love around, you feel cheated and angry. You are both bound to each other by a pact of reciprocation. You have to be 'made for each other'. Sooner or later, this kind of arrangement leaves you cramped and frustrated, and in anger you withdraw your parcel and go off to find someone else to exchange it with. Or else your partner does that.

Now the kind of love I would like you to grow towards, is love experienced as a quality of your very being. This kind of love is simply an outpouring of one's joy and gratitude, just for being alive. It is a fragrance of joy, it spreads itself around unconditionally. It does not need an object, it does not need a return gift. This kind of love is like sunshine or rain; it gives of itself unconditionally, and whomsoever stands within its circle can experience the warmth or the freshness without question. This love always enriches; it is the only kind of love that can be enjoyed without fear or guilt.

For love to become your quality, you must be willing to surrender yourself completely. Only in an egoless state can this love arise. This is not easy, but you can make a beginning. You will discover that simply through love and gratitude, you begin to let go of the ego, just a little. And as you let go, more and more love enters into that space. Try practicing this in your relationships. There's no need to make a fuss about loving; don't become serious in your love - just be totally sincere!

Q: Beloved master, in Bharat we are brought up on rituals and idol worship. Are you for or against these?

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First of all, I am neither for nor against idol worship or rituals - or anything, for that matter! But there is a reason why idol worship is so common in Bharat, and elsewhere in the East. For a beginner on the spiritual journey, it is difficult to even conceive of the divine in the abstract. When given a form, it is crystallized into something he understands and can relate to. With an idol, he can commune with the divine in the language that he is familiar with. Our thousands of deities are nothing but expressions of the divine. And yet anyone can talk to them, pray to or play with them, seek solace or give thanks. The whole awesome, indefinable nature of the Divine is scaled down to comforting proportions in the form of the deity. It has to be this way; the Divine without form is simply too terrifying a concept for the ordinary mind.

At a deeper, subtler level, there is one more message being reinforced the idol before you is cast in the same form as yours, and yet it is divine.

What does that say about you? Think about it. Even if you are an idol worshipper, there is no need to condemn yourself. As you grow spiritually, you will find yourself able to commune with the divine just as well without an idol. Just as children stop playing with dolls as they grow older, you will drop the idols of your own accord when the time comes. But right now if it gives you a sense of well-being to worship your favourite deity, do so by all means. Spirituality is a vast, shoreless ocean. When you are just learning to swim, it would certainly help your confidence to hold onto a lifebuoy, something you can be sure of, something that won't let you down. As you grow stronger and surer, you will naturally shake off its hold and enter the deep waters, freely and fearlessly.

As for rituals, it has been scientifically proven that certain colours, sounds and actions can deeply impact your state of mind, activate desired areas of the brain, and expand your consciousness. Rituals have lost their credibility today only because their true meaning has been lost upon the masses over time. Only the shell of the ritual remains; the spirit has departed. But even if they seem irrelevant to you today, never underestimate the true potential of rituals. Rituals are the distillation of centuries of wisdom and the tapas of innumerable enlightened masters. When performed in the proper way, rituals have tremendous power to bring about unimaginable levels of awareness and change.

In the ashram, you may often find me performing pujas and yagas. The fact is, these mean nothing to me; I don't need a channel to commune with the divine. These are for my people. I do this to draw you all into a familiar territory, a space where you feel secure and tranquil. In an atmosphere that years of worship have sanctified, bowing before your beloved deities and listening to the chanting of well-known mantras, a silent, meditative state is naturally induced in you. At this time you are completely open and surrendered, receptive to my energy.

This is the time when I can truly work upon you, without your knowledge and without your resistance. Can you understand me now?

(Of course, I have never given up being a child, and so I perfectly enjoy my play with these beautiful dolls - but that is another matter!)

Q: Beloved master, what is karma?

Let me give you an idea about karma. Whenever an action has been started, but not fulfilled, there exists a force that pulls you to fulfill it, to bring it to completion. This force is karma. Whatever you have tasted, desired but not experienced completely, will continuously draw you to repeat that very experience, until you feel fulfillment. You will keep repeating that action till you actually become that experience, because you are fulfillment. You enter the body just to fulfill these actions. In the course of fulfillment, you meet all these things, these 'troubles'. This is the explanation which I give for karma. All the other ideas – it is because of my bad karma that I got this disease; it is because of my good karma that I met my master - all these are just things we say after the event has happened. Whatever has happened, we give it the name karma.

The word karma is much misunderstood. I am not giving you an explanation for karma as we understand it. I don't mean karma as fate or vidhi. According to my experience, there is no such thing as fate. The future is left completely open by Existence. It is we who decide.

Ramakrishna tells a beautiful story which will give you intellectual clarity on the subject. Of course, no one can give you existential, experiential clarity on karma as it really is; that clarity comes only with enlightenment. And when you are enlightened, you cannot express it!

Coming to the story on karma:

A cow is tied to a post with a 5-meter rope. Inside that perimeter it can sit, stand, feed, do whatever it pleases. Our life is just the same. We have a limited amount of freedom; the rest is in the hands of Existence. But Ramakrishna also adds, if we use our 5-meter freedom intelligently, it is possible that Existence will extend our rope, or even free us completely. That depends on both us and the master, on jiva (ordinary mortals) and Shiva. You can choose whether to remain in bondage or work towards being set free. Someone once asked me, 'What if the cow learns to bite and break the rope?'

First of all, do you know where the rope is? To which limb it is tied? Where it begins and ends? Where to bite? How to bite? With an ordinary cow and rope, the cow can see these things. You people don't even know what or where your rope is! So whatever I can give you is only a glimpse, an inspiration to enter into me, to enter into the experience.

Q: Dearest master, since the mind is only 'inner chatter', is it necessary to drop the intellect in order to approach the divine?

Before I can answer that, you need to understand the working of the mind. The mind is a composite of 4 functions: manas (the part that receives information about the outer world from your senses), chitta (the memory or record of cosmic knowledge), buddhi (intellect) and ahankaar (ego). Beyond all these is the atman (self). All information is tracked through these areas of the mind.

For instance, when you see a marigold, the nonverbal information, 'yellow flower', is absorbed by your manas from the eyes.

This information is sent to chitta, which matches it against all records of flowers previously seen, and determines whether this particular flower is a familiar one.

The file then passes to the buddhi, which concludes that the yellow flower is a marigold; it is large; it is not a fragrant flower, and so on.

Then comes the turn of the ahankaar, which is in charge of generating opinions based on self-interest, e.g. 'I like this flower', or 'I think the neighbours' garden has better marigolds,' or whatever. Based on the information supplied by the ahankaar, the atman decides the plan of action: 'pick the flower!' or 'water the flower!' or 'throw it out!'

The unfortunate thing about this arrangement is that by the time the information reaches the atman, it has already been filtered by the ahankaar - with the result that what you see and act upon is not reality, but only a subverted version of reality that the ego wants you to see. No wonder you remain in ignorance and confusion, and come to the conclusion that inner chatter is all that the mind is capable of!

When intelligence awakens, the ego dies a natural death. For the first time, the atman takes direct control of the situation. It's like President's Rule (when the president takes control of a region in an emergency situation)! Tremendous sources of energy open up and become available. The absorption of information no longer depends only on the five senses. Consequently, information processing and decision-making become infinitely swifter and more efficient - with the result that it appears miraculous to ordinary eyes. This is the state in which yogis fly or teleport objects and perform other such miracles. This is the magical state which is perceived as being in harmony with the divine.

So you see, to approach the divine, what you should be willing to drop is not the mind or the intellect, but only the ego. Don't make the mistake of throwing out the baby out with the bathwater!