The Talks
of
Sadguru Upasani-Baba Maharraja
Vol I
(The Selected Talks)
Sections I – IV
p. 133 – U.V. III-1
58
19-2-1924
(1) I am as you think. (2) Satpurusha as a mirror. (3) Signs of a Jivanmukta. (4) Some important rules and how to observe them.
(1)
(One of the devotees at the time of darshana said that he had read a good bit, but his mind had not calmed down; he could not understand anything about God. Shri Baba began to speak to him.)
“Bharabhara Vachile Grantha, Pari Na Kale TyachaArtha; Na Suche Atmakhunecha Pantha, Upaje Janta Punah Punah.”
Those that love to see Satpurushas always feel that they should have actual darshana; they should have some spiritual experience; they should know something about God. It is for this that they go to a Satpurusha or somebody who has become like God. They take me to be like God and approach me and ask me about Him. I, then, according to his capacity, tell him and show him something which I receive from him; because I have nothing of my own with me. I am just in the state of ‘only’.
I am like an empty pot; whatever you keep in a pot, you can get back from that pot; if you keep milk, you will get milk; if you keep some dirt, you will get dirt; if you keep something scented, you will have that. In the same way, this head of mine is an empty pot. How can I, who just ‘is’, can call anything as mine; who can see anything — and what in me?
Whatever comes in this empty pot is returned to him from whom it comes; and whatever thus I return, he experiences in course of time. The fact being like that, I happen to do various things in this world according to whatever circumstances or persons make me do them; if there is none with me, I have nothing to do with the affairs and ways of the world; then I just sit like that.
If this state of ‘onliness’ be called as the highest state, then whatever use you can put it to, you may.
Anything empty like that can be used by anybody in any way. Think of a fallow land. If you sow wheat in it this year, you will have the harvest of wheat next year; whatever you will sow you will have its harvest; if you sow fruit trees, you will have fruits in course of time. In the same way whatever you sow in this empty state of mine, you will get that in plenty even in this life if you are a person of determination, otherwise after death. If you want to have Vaikuntha, then you should take me to be Vishnu and this place of mine — the Jhopadi (the hut containing the cage) as Vaikuntha; once you determine like that, you have sown the seed of Vishnu in this empty pot of mine; as your Sadhana reaches its limit, according to your qualification, either in this very birth or just prior to your death or after death you will attain Vaikuntha. You see me like this here; but remember that in Vaikuntha, I remain in the form of Vishnu. For the attainment of Vishnu thus I serve as a medium. Like that I can be taken to be Shankara or any other God you like; and you will experience me to be that in due course. That is the truth. Whatever God you think of, I am that; through me those Deities help their devotees. If thus you treat me as a particular form of God you like, and do your Sadhana, you will attain the state of that particular Deity.
In the same way, those that will take me as their parents, forefathers, or near relatives, past or present, and behave with me in a suitable manner, then they, with all their forefathers and those relatives, will attain the state of Infinite Bliss; and there they will meet them in celestial forms. It has been said — “Tvameva Mata Cha Pita Tvameva, Tvameva Bandhushcha Sakha Tvameva; Tvameva Vidya Dravinam Tvameva, Tvameva Sarvam Mama Deva Deva.”
According to this if you decide that I am yourself and your all, and since I am in the state of ‘only’, i.e. of Para-Brahma, you and all that is yours are bound to attain Godhood. Where else can you go? It has also been said —
“Mata Ramo Matpita Ramachandrah, Svami Ramo Matsakha Ramachandrah; Sar-vasvam Me Ramachandro Dayalur, Nanyam Jane Naiva Jane Na Jane.”
According to this shloka, a person, who has decided that I am the Ramakrishna and all his relations and his all, will attain the state of Ramakrishna with all his relatives and his all. I am all other forms of God. This observation is for those who have faith in me, who are real devotees. I being in the state of ‘only’ can be used in other ways also. If the wicked think me to be otherwise, then they will attain what they take me to be, and will be the sufferers.
I am like a mould; to make a concrete pillar you make a wooden mould and fill it with the necessary cement mixture; after a little while, the mould is undone, and there appears a well formed cement pillar. The same mould is utilised to cast hundreds of pillars. In the same way, whatever attitude you will have about me, you will be like that. Think over this the other way. Take your body to be a mould and pour God within it; that will fill your mind with God or with me taking me to be God, provided you do this with all determination; as you fill your body-mould fully, and as you leave or do away with the body-mould, you will become God yourself; so far your gross body is there you cannot see the inner form of yours, i.e. the form you have now become, because your gross senses have no capacity to see the fine invisible form of God. Even when you fix in your mind my external form, since I am full of Satchidananda from within and without, as you lose your gross physical body you will experience yourself to have been transformed into Satchidananda. Thus 1 only serve as a mould; no change is effected in me; to be at a profit or loss by associating with me, entirely depends on you, and not on me.
(2)
Being in the state of ‘only’, if you desire to take me to be God or a Satpurusha, well, it is your affair; how could I say what I am? I cannot say if I am ‘this or that’. I can say and prove that you yourself are God or a Satpurusha. As I am just ‘only’, what can you see in me, or rather how can you see me? When you look at me, it is not that you see me, but you only see what you are; your qualities — good or bad — are reflected in this ‘only’ and you are able to see them; and as you see that, due to your ignorance, you think that you are seeing me with such & such qualities, but actually you are only seeing your own self — your qualities and not me, since I am in the state of ‘only ’and so virtually in the state of nothing.
So when you call me God, it is your own reflection you see, and due to your ignorance you charge me with your qualities and call me God. If you are a wicked man, I look a rascal to you. My form only shows you what you are.
The state of ‘only is like a hollow — like the sky. The sky or a hollow contains nothing; if you go inside it with whatever you have, you will only see what you have and nothing else. The state of ‘only’ is like the mirror. When you see in the mirror, you see yourself and nothing else. The mirror just represents the state of ‘only’ in this world. Instead of looking at the mirror, you look into it, and you will see your own reflection. You do not call your reflection as the mirror; do you? As you see your face, in the mirror, you do not call the mirror your face. If you do not look into the mirror, the mirror just remains there where you have kept it; that is all.
You have a face, but you do not know how it looks; that is why you take a mirror and see into it, and then only you know how your face looks. I am exactly like that — a mirror.
Due to my state of ‘only’ — the state of a mirror, you can only see your own qualities reflected in me. When, thus, you call me God, it is your own reflection as a God that you see in me. You do not call the mirror your face; in the same way, you cannot call me God. When you call me God, you should know that you yourself are that. You have to take a mirror to see your face; in the same way, you take me to see what you are.
Why should you call me God or a Satpurusha? If I were a Satpurusha right from the beginning — then everybody in the world -— the virtuous and the vicious — would have called me — would have recognised me to bo the same — the Sat-purusha.
Take a mango tree; right from the beginning it is a mango tree and is recognised by everybody as a mango tiee. Does anybody call a mango tree a Babhula tree? It is not that some call it a mango tree and some the Babhula tree. The fact, that I am called virtuous by some and vicious by others should convince you that I am not an ‘original’ Satpurusha; otherwise everybody would have called me the same, as in the case of the mango tree. Since different qualities are seen in me by different persons, it means that I am in the state of a mirror — the state of ‘only’ which is utilised by you.
If I were a Satpurusha everbody would have called me by that epithet and I would have been of no use to anybody to see himself reflected in me. Since different persons feel differently about me, it means that I am in the state of a mirror — in the state of ‘only’ in which anybody could see his own reflection.
If you paint a picture of Vishnu on the mirror, you can no more see your face in it; when now you approach the mirror, you will see the picture of Vishnu. By painting the mirror this way, you have removed the quality of reflection from it. Unless you wipe out the picture from over the mirror, i.e. unless you bring the mirror into its original state of ‘only’, you cannot see your reflection into it.
If I were only a Satpurusha you would not be able to see yourself reflected in me, I would then resemble a mirror on which a picture is painted. So you should not take me to be anything — God or a Satpurusha or even a human being; you should take me to be nothing — to be a hollow — to be a mirror; and I am exactly in that state. If you charge me with your qualities and then call me a Satpurusha, it is your affair; I am just in the state of ‘only’. That is all.
Whatever is held in front of a mirror you are able to see its reflection. The mirror does not complain if a bad thing is held in front of it. The mirror is never affected by what you hold in front of it; it being in the state of ‘nothing’, it only reflects what is held in front of it. That is all. In the same way, if some of you call me a wicked man, a fool or a rascal, it means that it is you who are that, and not I. I cannot be anything, good or bad, since I am only in the state of ‘nothing’, — in the state of a mirror. The function of this form of mine is only to show you what you are. If you call me a Satpurusha, then this idea you have formed by seeing your own reflection in me, should be held firmly by you, and it shall lead you, in due course, to the same state — the status of a Satpurusha — the state of Infinite Bliss.
Just think of an infant; it has got eyes, ears, mouth, hands, feet, etc.; it, however, does not know that it has got so many organs and parts. At that age of the infant, if you hold a mirror in front of its face, as it sees its reflection, it has no idea that it is its reflection; it feels it to be a wonder, — its reflected face; it takes that mirror to be the face; it tries to touch the mouth or the nose. All these movements it sees in the mirror, make it laugh. It goes on constantly trying to pull at the nose of the child seen in the mirror, and it goes on laughing. And thus it plays. In short, it has no idea that it is its reflection; it thinks that it is somebody else’s face, or that that mirror is some child, and it goes on playing and laughing with it — it is enjoying that sight — the reflection of its own self; the only thing worth noting in this is that the child is not cognizant of the fact that it is its own face, that it is seeing in the mirror. As the power of understanding of the child increases, in due course it begins to understand that what it sees is not something ‘another’ but its own face; it means that with proper understanding the child forgets about the mirror and looks at its own reflection in it, & it begins to know how it looks itself.
The relation between us is somewhat of this type. You come to me and trouble me as you see your own reflection in me — to enjoy your own self as you see yourself in me, who serves the purpose of a mirror for you. Just as the child is not able to pull the nose of the child in the mirror, because of that mirror, i.e. because of the glass, in the same way, even though you are able to see your own Godly form in me, you cannot have it because of a transparent glass like partition between you and your reflection in me. This transparent glass like partition that separates your real form from yourself is called Maya. The question that comes next to our mind is as to when and how this partition will disappear to enable you to attain your real form of Infinite Bliss?
Think of the child again. In the beginning it is not able to appreciate that it is its own reflection in the mirror; but as the understanding grows it begins to understand that what it sees is only the reflection, and that what it sees in the mirror is not itself. If it wants to touch the nose, it has to touch its own nose and the reflection will show that the nose is touched. That action it has to do on its own body. In course of time it does not require any mirror at all to touch its nose. It knows that it has its nose and it can touch it when it likes. If you believe and practice with determination that I am the Satpurusha, in due course you will begin to understand that I am in the state of ‘onliness’, and that you yourself are the Satpurusha. Incidentally, you will understand the state of ‘onliness’ in which I am.
(3)
It is customary to call him a Satpurusha, who has attained the state of ‘onliness’. Such a Satpurusha is seen to behave like all other Jivas to spend the Frarabdha that comes to him for the good of the world; or else he is seen to behave as he likes; but whatever they are seen doing, they are never attached to it or affected by it; because during all those actions, they are always beyond the state of the gross body, i.e. they are in a state of liberation; it is such persons, who are always in the state of liberation, that are called Jivanmukta.
The essential point in their behaviour — in their actions is that they are never attached to anything or affected by anything. They know for a fact that the world is really non-existent; they know it comes into existence in one’s own imagination, they can bring it into existence like that, make use of it and become useful to all in that world. They can make any changes they like in it. They can also behave on their own taking the world to be non-existent. They experience that they are the whole world, or they experience that the world is not there and they are beyond that state. These are some of the signs of a Jivan-mukta.
To attain the state of a Jivan-mukta, one has got first of all to behave in accordance with what is laid down by the Faith and go on performing satkarmas and through them increase satvaguna in himself and attain purification of the mind; having attained that the person should associate with a Satpurusha and do whatever service he could by him; behaving this way leads him in due course to the state of a Jivanmukta.
(4)
What is meant by observing rules, or a Vrata? Throughout the period of Reading any Grantha (hook) such as my Prava-chanas or Bhagavata, Ramayana, etc., as far as possible one should avoid the affairs of the world. Observe silence as much as possible. One should get up early in the morning, take his bath, do the routine Sandhya, Japa, Puja, etc. and then commence the reading. A ghee lamp should be kept burning; this is preferable to an oil lamp; if it is not possible, an oil lamp will do. The whole reading should be done in the same place every day. If possible, observe fast throug-out the period: if physically not possible, have some frugal articles used on fasting days; if not, have some food once a day; the food should consist of simple frugal dishes. The wife also should observe the same rules. Observe celibacy throughout the period particularly.
A special room, a corner in a room, near the family Gods, in a temple, under the specially advised trees, along the banks of a river, or sea-shore, etc., are the places that should be selected according to one’s circumstances. A person who can control his sleep should have a bath at night and commence reading, etc., from midnight onwards; this is the ideal time. If night-bath is not possible, the sanctified ashes should be applied to the whole body; if not, change into a washed and clean dhoti. These are the rules observed generally for any Anushthana.
If it becomes impossible to observe any such rules, then one should read the books as and when he could every day; after all it is a satkarma and is bound to bear its fruit; it would at least absolve you from sins. If systematic Anushthana is done, then the atma gets purified and the person attains the Infinite Bliss. This is the Truth.
