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201. In
my world there is community, insight, love, real quality;
the individual is the total, the totality is in the
individual. All are one and the One is all.
202. To remember what needs to be remembered is the
secret of success. You come to it through earnestness.
203. Knowing the world to be a part of myself, I pay
it no more attention than you pay to the food you have
eaten.
204. Mind is interested in what happens, while
awareness is interested in the mind itself. The child is
after the toy, but the mother watches the child, not the
toy.
205. To lose entirely all interest in knowledge
results in omniscience.
206. Once you know your mind and its miraculous
powers, and remove what poisoned it - the idea of a separate
and isolated person - you just leave it alone to do its work
among things for which it is well suited. To keep the mind
in its own place and on its own work is the liberation of
the mind.
207. Forget the known, but remember that you are the
knower. Don't be all the time immersed in your experiences.
Remember that you are beyond the experiencer, ever unborn
and deathless.
208. Remember, you cannot abandon what you do not
know. To go beyond yourself, you must know yourself.
209. Earnestness is not a yearning for the fruits of
one's endeavours. It is an expression of an inner shift of
interest away from the false, the unessential, the
personal.
210. The desire for Truth is the best of all desires,
yet it is still a desire. All desires must be given up for
the real to be. Remember that you are. This is your working
capital. Rotate it and there will be much profit.
211. A man who claims to know what is good for others
is dangerous.
212. There can be no consciousness without awareness,
but there can be awareness without consciousness, as in deep
sleep.
213. Do not look for me in identification with or
opposition to something: I am where desire and fear are
not.
214. Consciousness does not shine by itself. It
shines by a light beyond it.
215. The mind must learn that beyond the moving mind
there is the background of awareness which does not change.
The mind must come to know the true Self and respect it and
cease covering it up, like the moon which obscures the sun
during solar eclipse.
216. While the mind is centred in the body, and
consciousness is centred in the mind, awareness is free. The
body has its urges and mind its pains and pleasures.
Awareness is unattached and unshaken. It is lucid, silent,
peaceful, alert and unafraid, without desire and fear.
Meditate on it as your true being and try to be it in your
daily life, and you shall realise it in its fullness.
217. Awareness becomes consciousness when it has an
object. The object changes all the time. In consciousness
there is movement; awareness by itself is motionless and
timeless, here and now.
218. All consciousness is limited and therefore
painful. At the root of consciousness lies desire, the urge
to experience.
219. The world is but a succession of experiences and
you are what makes them conscious, and yet remain beyond all
experience. It is like the heat, the flame and the burning
wood. The heat maintains the flame, the flame consumes the
wood. Without heat, there would be neither flame nor fuel.
Similarly, without awareness there would be no
consciousness, nor life, which transforms matter into a
vehicle of consciousness.
220. You can have for the asking all the peace you
want. You must ask with an undivided heart and live an
integrated life. Detach yourself from all that makes your
mind restless. Renounce all that disturbs its peace. If you
want peace, deserve it and don't disturb it by being a slave
to your desires and fears.
221. Emotional reactions, born of ignorance or
inadvertence, are never justified. Seek a clear mind and a
clean heart. All you need is to keep quietly alert,
enquiring into the real nature of your Self. This is the
only way to peace.
222. Discover all that you are not. Body, feelings,
thoughts, ideas, time, space, being and not-being, this or
that - nothing concrete or abstract you can point out to is
you. A mere verbal statement will not do - you may repeat a
formula endlessly without any result whatsoever. You must
watch yourself continuously - particularly your mind -
moment by moment, missing nothing. This witnessing is
essential for the separation of the self from the
not-self.
223. Go within and discover what you are not. Nothing
else matters.
224. Distrust your mind, and go beyond it to the
direct experience of being, knowing and loving. There are
many starting points - they all lead to the same goal. You
may begin with selfless work, abandoning the fruits of
action; you may then give up thinking and in the end give up
all desires. Here, giving up [tyaga] is the
operational factor. Or you may not bother about anything you
want, or think, or do and just stay put in the thought and
feeling "I am", focussing "I am" firmly in your mind. All
kinds of experience may come to you - remain unmoved in the
knowledge that all perceivable is transient, and only the "I
am" endures.
225. That which sees all and nothing is the inner
teacher. He alone is, all else only appears to be. He is
your own Self, your hope and assurance of freedom; find him
and cling to him and you will be saved and safe.
226. The Self is solid, steady, changeless,
beginningless and endless, ever new, ever fresh.
Desirelessness and fearlessness will take you there.
227. Whatever happens it happens to you. What you do,
the doer is in you. Find the subject of all that you are as
a person.
228. Give up all questions except one: "Who am I?"
After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are.
The "I am" is certain. The "I am this" is not. Struggle to
find out what you are in reality. Give your heart and mind
to it, think of nothing else.
229. Adhere to the thought that you are the ground of
all knowledge, the immutable and perennial awareness of all
that happens to the senses and mind. If you keep it in mind
all the time, aware and alert, you are bound to break the
bounds of non-awareness and emerge into pure life, light and
love.
230. The idea, "I am the witness only", will purify
the body and the mind and open the eye of wisdom. Then man
goes beyond illusion and his heart is free of all desires.
Just like ice turns to water and water to vapour, and vapour
dissolves in air and disappears into space, so does the body
dissolve into pure awareness [chidakash], then into
pure being [paramakash], which is beyond all
existence and non-existence.
231. By focussing the mind on "I am", on the sense of
being, the "I am so-and-so" dissolves, the "I am a witness
only" remains and that too eventually submerges into "I am
all". Abandon the idea of a separate 'I' and the question of
"Whose experience?" will not arise.
232. When you discern and let go all that is unreal,
what remains is real.
233. The good news of enlightenment will, sooner or
later, bring about a transformation. First hearing
[shravana], then remembering [smarana],
pondering [manana] and so on. We are on familiar
ground. The man who heard the news becomes a yogi; while the
rest continue in their bhoga [worldly pursuits of joys
and sorrows].
234. Thinking yourself to be a person - living,
feeling, thinking, active, passive, pleased or pained - is a
mere habit, built on memory, prompted by desire. Question
yourself, ask yourself: "Is it so?", "Who am I?", "What is
behind and beyond all this?" And soon you will see your
mistake. It is in the very nature of a mistake to cease to
be, when seen.
235. What is perceived in pure awareness, unaffected
by desire and fear, is what is called a fact.
236. Love is a state of being. Sex is energy. Love is
wise, sex is blind.
237. What is going on is a projection of your mind. A
weak mind cannot control its own projections. Be aware,
therefore, of your mind and its projections. You cannot
control what you do not know. On the other hand, knowledge
gives power. In practice it is very simple. To control
yourself, know yourself.
238. Give your undivided attention to the most
important in your life, yourself. Of your personal universe
you are the centre - without knowing the centre what else
can you know?
239. The universe is of tremendous value. By going
beyond it you realise your Self. Find a foothold in the
beyond and all will be clear and easy.
240. Desires and fears remain only in your memory.
Realise that their root is in expectation born of memory,
and they will cease to obsess you.
241. In the ultimate state there is neither sorrow
nor happiness, only freedom. Happiness depends on something
or other and can be lost; freedom from everything depends on
nothing and cannot be lost. Freedom from sorrow has no cause
and therefore, cannot be destroyed. Realise that
freedom.
242. In the great mirror of consciousness images arise
and disappear, and only memory gives them continuity. And
memory is material - destructible, perishable, transcient.
On such flimsy foundations we build a sense of personal
existence - vague, intermittent, dreamlike. This vague
persuasion: "I am so and so" obscures the changeless state
of pure awareness and makes us believe that we are born to
suffer and die.
243. Consciousness and unconsciousness, while in the
body, depend on the condition of the brain. But the Self is
beyond both, beyond the brain, beyond the mind. The fault of
the instrument is no reflection on its user.
244. Everybody sees the world through the idea he has
of himself. If you imagine yourself as separate from the
world, the world will appear as separate from you and you
will experience desire and fear. I do not see the world as
separate from me, and so there is nothing for me to desire
or fear.
245. Wisdom lies in never forgetting the Self as the
ever-present source of both the experiencer and his
experience.
246. Wisdom is eternally negating the unreal. To see
the unreal is wisdom. Beyond this lies the
inexpressible.
247. Once you realise that the person is merely a
shadow of the Reality, but not the Reality itself, you cease
to fret and worry. You agree to be guided from within and
life becomes a journey into the unknown.
248. Freedom is freedom from worry. Having realised
that you cannot influence the results, pay no attention to
your desires and fears. Let them come and go. Don't give
them nourishment of interest and attention.
249. The illusion of being the body-mind is there
only because it is not investigated. Non-investigation is
the thread on which all the states of mind are strung.
250. All states of mind, all names and forms of
existence are rooted in non-enquiry, non-investigation, in
imagination and credulity. It is right to say "I am", but to
say "I am this", "I am that" is a sign of not enquiring, not
examining, of mental weakness or lethargy.
251. A man who knows that he is neither body nor mind
cannot be selfish, for he has nothing to be selfish for. Or,
you may say, he is equally "selfish" on behalf of everybody
he meets; everybody's welfare is his own.
252. All your problems arise because you have defined
and therefore limited yourself. When you do not think
yourself to be this or that, all conflict ceases. Any
attempt to do something about your problems is bound to
fail, for what is caused by desire can be undone only in
freedom from desire.
253. The pure mind sees things as they are - bubbles
in consciousness. These bubbles are appearing, disappearing
and reappearing, without having real being. No particular
cause can be ascribed to them, for each is caused by all and
affects all. Each bubble is a body and all these bodies are
mine.
254. All your questions are sprouting from your
identification with the body-form. You should go inside. All
hopes and desires should be for the Self. You should only be
craving the Self.
255. Prior to the appearance of this form, I was
neither being or no being. Consciousness has to appear in
this form, so this form can recognise Consciousness.
256. Whatever appears in Consciousness will disappear
in Consciousness, but Consciousness is ever present.
257. On what basis is one confident about this
existence? What does it depend on?
258. For the earnest seeker it is easy to realise the
Self, but it is difficult for others.
259. Everything becomes clear when you strive to
realise the Self and not God. This realisation, even for a
moment, wipes out all past and makes you free of all future
strain and trouble.
260. God may exist but only if there is an 'I' to
perceive it. Without an 'I' to perceive it who will confirm
his existence? The 'I' creates God!
261. You become thought free when you are not
thinking about yourself.
262. A jnani [Self realised soul] is not
affected by life or death.
263. The one who has created all bodies is the one
who decides their karma, the activity that they perform.
264. Once you transcend the idea that "I am the
body", then it won't matter whether life is short or long.
Maya [illusion] in no way can affect you.
265. Realise that eternal, absolute state, the
Parabrahma state, which is prior to all conception. Abide in
that!
266. When the 'beingness' ["I am"] state
goes, that absolute state will again prevail. It ever
prevails. The state in which you were eight days prior to
conception or thousands of years prior to that, whatever
that state is, that state ever prevails whether the
'beingness' state is there or the 'beingness' disappears.
That is the eternal state of yours.
267. Living is life's only purpose.
268. The mind creates time and space, and takes its
own creations for Reality. All is here and now, but we do
not see it. Truly, all is in me and by me. There is nothing
else. The very idea of "else" is a disaster and a
calamity.
269. It is the choices you make that are wrong. To
imagine that some little thing - food, sex, power, fame -
will make you happy is to deceive yourself.
270. The Self is universal and its aims are
universal. There is nothing personal about the Self. Live an
orderly life, but do not make it a goal by itself.
271. Nothing profits the world as mush as the
abandoning of profits. A man who no longer thinks in terms
of loss and gain is the truly non-violent man, for he is
beyond all conflict.
272. To divide and particularise is in the mind's
very nature. There is no harm in dividing. But separation
goes against fact. Things and people are different, but they
are not separate. Nature is one, Reality is one. There are
opposites, nut no opposition.
273. When you look at anything as separate from you,
you cannot love it for you are afraid of it. Alienation
causes fear, and fear deepens alienation. It is a vicious
circle. Only Self-realisation can break it. Go for it
resolutely.
274. Just as a speck in the eye, causing
inflammation, may wipe out the world, so the mistaken idea
"I am the body-mind" causes the self-concern, which obscures
the universe. It is useless to fight the sense of being a
limited and separate person unless the roots of it are laid
bare. Selfishness is rooted in the mistaken ideas of
oneself. Clarification of the mind is yoga.
275. The mind cannot know what is beyond the mind,
but the mind is known by what is beyond it.
276. In Reality nothing happens. Onto the screen of
the mind destiny forever projects its pictures, memories of
former projections, and thus illusion constantly renews
itself. The pictures come and go - light intercepted by
ignorance. See the light and disregard the picture.
277. You began as a child and you will end as a
child. Whatever you have acquired in the meantime you must
lose and start at the beginning.
278. What you need will come to you if you do not ask
for what you do not need. Yet only few people reach this
state of complete dispassion and detachment. It is a very
high state, the very threshold of liberation.
279. The 'here' is everywhere, and the 'now' always.
Go beyond the "I am the body" idea, and you will find that
space and time are in you and not you in space and time.
Once you have understood this, the main obstacle to
realisation is removed.
280. You are concerned with your own happiness and I
am telling you that there is no such thing. Happiness is
never your own, it is where the 'I' is not.
281. The world is but the surface of the mind, and
the mind is infinite. What we call thoughts are just ripples
in the mind. When the mind is quiet, it reflects Reality.
When it is motionless through and through; it dissolves and
only Reality remains. This Reality is so concrete, so
actual, so much more tangible than mind and matter, that
compared to it even diamond is soft like butter. This
overwhelming actuality makes the world dream-like, misty,
irrelevant.
282. There is only a stream of sensations,
perceptions, memories and ideations.
283. A man who is given a stone and assured that it
is a priceless diamond will be mightily pleased until he
realises his mistake; in the same way pleasures lose their
tang and pains their barb when the Self is known. Both are
seen as they are - conditional responses, mere reactions,
plain attractions and repulsions, based on memories or
preconceptions. Usually pleasure and pain are experienced
when expected. It is all a matter of acquired habits and
convictions.
284. As long as there is the body and the sense of
identity with the body, frustration is inevitable. Only when
you know your Self as entirely alien to and different from
the body, will you find respite from the mixture of fear and
craving inseparable from the "I am the body" idea.
285. Happiness is our real nature and we shall never
rest until we find it. But rarely do we know where to seek.
Once you have understood that the world is but a mistaken
view of Reality, and it is not what it appears to be, you
are free of its obsessions.
286. Pleasure is a distraction and a nuisance, for it
merely increases the false conviction that one needs to have
and do things to be happy when in reality it is just the
opposite.
287. To see everything as imagination born of desire
is necessary for Self-realisation. We miss the real lack of
attention and create the unreal by excess of
imagination.
288. Do what you believe in and believe in what you
do. All else is waste of energy and time.
289. To be is to suffer. the narrower the circle of
my self-identification, the more acute the suffering caused
by desire and fear.
290. What I teach is the ancient and simple way of
liberation through understanding. Understand your own mind
and its hold on you will snap. The mind misunderstands,
misunderstanding is its very nature. Right understanding is
the only remedy, whatever name you give it.
291. The person is what I appear to be to other
persons. To myself I am the infinite expanse of
consciousness in which innumerable persons emerge and
disappear in endless succession.
292. Just keep in mind the feeling "I am", merge in
it, until your mind and feeling become one. By repeated
attempts you will stumble on the right balance of attention
and affection, and your mind will be firmly established in
the thought-feeling "I am". Whatever you think, say, or do,
this sense of immutable and affectionate being remains as
the ever-present background of the mind.
293. The changeful keeps on changing, while the
changeless is waiting. Do not expect the changeful to take
you to the changeless - it can never happen.
294. You are the perceiving point, the
non-dimensional source of all dimensions.
295. The realised man knows what others merely hear,
but do not experience. Intellectually they may seem
convinced, but in action they betray their bondage.
296. What happens to the body and the mind may not be
within your power to change, but you can always put an end
to your imagining yourself to be body and mind. Whatever
happens, remind yourself that only your body and mind are
affected, not your Self.
297. Be empty of all mental content, of all
imagination and effort, and the very absence of obstacles
will cause Reality to rush in.
298. Spiritual maturity lies in the readiness to let
go of everything. The giving up is the first step. But real
giving up is the realisation that there is nothing to give
up, for nothing is your own. It is like deep sleep - you do
not give up your bed when you fall asleep, you just forget
it.
299. Mind is interested in what happens, while
awareness is interested in the mind itself. The child is
after the toy, but the mother watches the child, not the
toy.
300. Forget the known, but remember that you are the
knower. Don't be all the time immersed in your experiences.
Remember that you are beyond the experiencer, ever unborn
and deathless.
301. To want nothing and do nothing - that is true
creation! To watch the universe emerging and subsiding in
one's heart is a wonder.
302. When effort is needed, effort will appear. When
effortlessness becomes essential, it will assert itself. You
need not push life about. Just flow with it and give
yourself completely to the task of the present moment, which
is the dying now to the now. For living is dying. Without
death life cannot be.
303. To work in the world is hard, to refrain from
all unnecessary work is even harder.
304. The moment you know your real being, you are
afraid of nothing. Death gives freedom and power. To be free
in the world, you must die to the world. Then the universe
is your own, it becomes your body, an expression and a tool.
The happiness of being absolutely free is beyond
description. On the other hand, he who is afraid of freedom
cannot die.
305. Does a happy man seek happiness? How restless
people are, how constantly on the move! It is because they
are in pain that they seek relief in pleasure. All the
happiness they can imagine is in the assurance of repeated
pleasure.
306. The only difference between us is that I am
aware of my natural state, while you are bemused. Just like
gold made into ornaments has no advantage over gold dust,
except when the mind makes it so, so are we are in being -
we differ only in appearance. We discover it by being
earnest, by searching, enquiring, questioning daily and
hourly, by giving oneís life to this discovery.
307. Do not identify yourself with the world and you
will not suffer.
308. Do understand that you are destined for
enlightenment. Co-operate with your destiny, dont go against
it, dont thwart it. Allow it to fulfil itself. All you have
to do is to give attention to the obstacles created by the
foolish mind.
309. You need not get at It [Reality], for
you are It. It will get at you, if you give It a chance. Let
go your attachment to the unreal and the real will swiftly
and smoothly slip into its own. Stop imagining yourself
being or doing this or that and the realisation that you are
the source and heart of all will dawn upon you.
310. The real does not die, the unreal never
lived.
311. I see no difference between you and me. My life
is a succession of events, just like yours. Only I am
detached and see the passing show as a passing show, while
you stick to things and move along with them.
312. Yes, I appear to hear and see and talk and act,
but to me it just happens, as to you digestion or
perspiration happens. The body-mind machine looks after it,
but leaves me out of it. Just as you do not need to worry
about growing hair, so I need not worry about words and
actions. They just happen and leave me unconcerned, for in
my world nothing ever goes wrong.
313. Pleasure and pain lost their sway over me. I was
free from desire and fear. I found myself full, needing
nothing.
314. To me it is 'a body', not 'my body', 'a mind'.
not 'my mind'. The mind looks after the body all right, I
need not interfere.
315. Whatever is done, is done on the stage. Joy and
sorrow, life and death, they all are real to the man in
bondage; to me they are all in the show, as unreal as the
show itself.
316. To me nothing ever happens. There is something
changeless, motionless, immovable, rock-like, unassailable;
a solid mass of pure being-consciousness-bliss. I am never
out of it. Nothing can take me out of it, no torture, no
calamity.
317. Man alone can destroy in himself the roots of
pain.
318. All is attended to in minutest details and yet
there is a sense of unreality about it all. So is the case
with me. All happens as it needs, yet nothing happens. I do
what seems to be necessary, but at the same time I know that
nothing is necessary, that life itself is only a
make-belief.
319. There was discovery and it was sudden. Just as
at birth you discover the world suddenly, as suddenly I
discovered my real being.
320. I am neither conscious nor unconscious. I am
beyond the mind and its various states and conditions. A
person is a set pattern of desires and thoughts and
resulting actions; there is no pattern in my case. There is
nothing I desire or fear, so how can there be a pattern?
321. You are always seeking pleasure, avoiding pain,
always after happiness and peace. Don’t you see that it
is your very search for happiness that makes you feel
miserable? Try the other way: indifferent to pain and
pleasure, neither asking, nor refusing, give all your
attention to the level on which "I am" is timeslessly
present. Soon you will realise that peace and happiness are
in your very nature and it is only seeking them through some
particular channels that disturbs. Avoid the disturbances,
that is all.
322. Act on what you think is true. This is the way
to the Truth. Action is the test of Truth.
323. The conscious presence depends on the body, and
the body is nothing but the sperm and ovum, so where is this
'you'? The body is like an instrument that says, "I am",
like an announcer. Presently you think you are the
body-mind, and whatever concepts you have collected are
flowing out. When you begin spirituality, you reject the
body-mind with "I am not that." Then you come to the "I am"
only, without words. Then you are everything, you are not
confined to the body.
324. The desire to find the Self will surely be
fulfilled, provided you want nothing else. But you must be
honest with yourself and really want nothing else. If in the
meantime you want many other things and are engaged in their
pursuit, your main purpose may be delayed until you grow
wiser and cease being torn between contradictory urges. Go
within, without swerving, without ever looking outward.
325. My world is absolutely free; everything in it is
self-determined. Therefore I keep on saying that all happens
by itself. There is order in my world too, but it is not
imposed from outside. It comes spontaneously and
immediately, because of its timelessness. Perfection is not
in the future. It is now.
326. What is supremely important is to be free from
contradictions: the goal and the way must not be on
different levels; life and light must not quarrel; behavior
must not betray belief. Call it honesty, integrity,
wholeness; you must not go back, undo, uproot, abandon the
conquered ground. Tenacity of purpose and honesty in pursuit
will bring you to your goal.
327. Whatever name you give it: will, or steady
purpose, or one pointedness of mind, you come back to
earnestness, sincerity, honesty. When you are in dead
earnestness, you bend every incident, every second of your
life to your purpose. You do not waste time and energy on
other things. You are totally dedicated, call it will, or
love, or plain honesty. We are complex beings, at war within
and without. We contradict ourselves all the time, undoing
today the work of yesterday. No wonder we are stuck. A
little of integrity would make a lot of difference.
328. Go deep into the sense of "I am" and you will
find. How do you find a thing you have mislaid or forgotten?
You keep it in your mind until you recall it. The sense of
being, of "I am" is the first to emerge. Ask yourself whence
it comes, or just watch it quietly. When the mind stays in
the "I am", without moving, you enter a state that cannot be
verbalized but can be experienced. All you need to do is to
try and try again.
329. I can tell you about myself. I was a simple man,
but I trusted my Guru. What he told me to do, I did. He told
me to concentrate on "I am" - I did. He told me that I am
beyond all perceivables and conceivables - I believed. I
gave him my heart and soul, my entire attention and the
whole of my spare time. As a result of faith and earnest
application, I realised my Self within three years.
330. Detach yourself from all that makes your mind
restless. Renounce all that disturbs its peace. If you want
peace, deserve it.
331. Emotional reactions, born of ignorance or
inadvertence, are never justified. Seek a clear mind and a
clean heart. All you need is to keep quietly alert,
enquiring into the real nature of yourself. This is the only
way to peace.
332. For him, the sincere seeker, the right procedure
is to adhere to the thought that he is the ground of all
knowledge, the immutable and perennial awareness of all that
happens to the senses and mind. If he keeps it in mind all
the time, aware and alert, he is bound to break the bounds
of non-awareness and emerge into pure life, light and love.
The idea - "I am the witness only" will purify the body and
the mind and open the eye of wisdom. Then man goes beyond
illusion and his heart is free of all desires. Just like ice
turns to water and water to vapour, and vapour dissolves in
air and disappears into space, so does the body dissolve
into pure awareness, then into pure being, which is beyond
all existence and non-existence.
333. A spark of truth can burn up a mountain of lies.
The opposite is also true. The sun of truth remains hidden
behind the cloud of self-identification with the body.
334. I see what you too could see, here and now, but
for the wrong focus of your attention. You give no attention
to your Self. Your mind is all with things, people and
ideas, never with your self. Bring your Self into focus,
become aware of your own existence. See how you function,
watch the motives and results of your actions. Study the
prison you have built around yourself, by inadvertence.
335. Why do you feel sorry for this mortal body?
336. Look at the net and its many contradictions. You
do and undo at every step. You want peace, love, happiness
and work hard to create pain, hatred and war. You want
longevity and overeat, you want friendship and exploit. See
your net as made of such contradictions and remove them -
your very seeing will make them go.
337. How do you go about finding anything? By keeping
your mind and heart on it. Interest there must be and steady
remembrance. To remember what needs to be remembered is the
secret of success. You come to it through earnestness.
338. First purify your vision. Learn to see instead
of staring. Also you must be eager to see. You need to both
clarity and earnestness for self-knowledge. You need purity
of heart and mind, which comes through earnest application
in daily life of whatever life you have understood. There is
no such thing as compromise in Yoga.
339. Take the first step first. All blessings come
from within. Turn within. "I am" you know. Be with it all
the time you can spare, until you revert to it
spontaneously. There is no simpler and easier way.
340. We know the outer world of sensations and
actions, but of our inner world of thoughts and feelings we
know very little. The primary purpose of meditation is to
become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The
ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and
consciousness. Incidentally, practice of meditation affects
deeply our character. We are slaves to what we do not know;
of what we know we are masters. Whatever vice or weakness in
ourselves we discover and understand its causes and its
workings, we overcome it by the very knowing; the
unconscious dissolves when brought into the conscious. The
dissolution of the unconscious releases energy; the mind
feels adequate and becomes quiet.
341. Refuse all thoughts except one: the thought "I
am". The mind will rebel in the beginning, but with patience
and perseverance it will yield and keep quiet.
342. All you need is to stop searching outside what
can be found only within. Set your vision right before you
operate. You are suffering from acute misapprehension.
Clarify your mind, purify your heart, sanctify your life -
this is the quickest way to a change of your world.
343. Have your Guru always in your heart and remember
his instructions - this is real abidance with the true.
344. True happiness cannot be found in things that
change and pass away. Pleasure and pain alternate
inexorably. Happiness comes from the Self and can be found
in the Self only. Find your real Self and all else will come
with it.
345. We discover Self by being earnest, by searching,
enquiring, questioning daily and hourly, by giving one's
life to this discovery.
346. You are not this mortal body, so why even be
concerned with it?"
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