The following talk was excerpted from ‘The Identification of the Beloved’ a talk given in 1976 and published in ‘The Paradox of Instruction’ in 1977.
Truth is not some hopeful word such as “You will be immortal on this earth, and all things will cease to die and we will live forever.” There is no such message. That is not the Truth. Even if that were factually true, it is not the Truth. The Truth is in this recognition, this sacrifice in which secondarily, our lives may be prolonged, but we are still obliged to the same sacrifice and the same humor and on its basis are we to realize all the secondary effects of the fulfillment of the Law, which may be prolonged living or may not.
So it is true that this anxiety that you discover in yourself, this emotion. And that is not healed by any ordinary arrangement. It is itself that condition in our awareness by which we are moved to fulfill the Law, to make this sacrifice. It is not otherwise removed, we are not otherwise relieved of it. In your right response in this sadhana, it passes. Anything, anyone, that you love and enjoy and so forth in this realm is only, if you will recognize it, the Beloved, the very Real itself.
This is what you discover in all your loving, all your enjoyments, if you are a true man, a true woman. If you do not live by recognition, all your experiencing and enjoyments lead to attachment only. They reinforce ritual behavior, craving for contact, craving for experience, craving for repetitions in which we are constantly anxious, ill at ease, suffering reactive emotions, endlessly thinking, mulling things over things mentally as if we were trying to solve some hidden problem, knotted up in the body, always active to find some pleasurable condition that will last, that will fulfill us. If you recognize this matter arising here, you are not bound up by reaction to that course, that ceremony. You are relieved of it. And it is the only release.
Paradoxically, even though there is all of this delight there is not one single thing, there is not a single event, not a single change, not a single modification, no birth, no death. Nothing has happened. Nothing has ever happened. Nothing will ever happen. There is only a single and absolute Condition, unspeakable in its Nature, which we may not see or view or experience over against ourselves, but which is our very Condition prior to all changes, high or low. Having fallen into That, then all the changes, high or low have a disposition from which to be viewed should they arise and, as it happens, this one continues to arise for the time being.
Paradoxically, because it does not amount to anything. Nothing is gained by a moment’s living, absolutely nothing. Nothing changes on the basis of it. Nothing is gained by a single meeting, by a single moment’s satisfaction, by a single contact. It isn’t anything. It is only an illusion, a modification of the essential Condition.
If you come to rest in that Condition, then in every moment you recognize this and are happy, already happy. Because you can play in the ordinary ways, and on the other hand you never become wretched. You are not degraded through your own craving, because you recognize what you love, and therefore your relations with your lovers, with this whole world, your relations are natural, happy.
Otherwise, your anxiety over the loss of separation will become so great that you will eventually degrade the relationship itself, to separate yourself automatically then everything you do begins to separate you from the loved one even though you are here to be loving. Because you are so anxious, so terrified, so upset.
But if you will recognize one another, if you will recognize this world, if you will recognize me then you are engaged in that process that relieves you of this illusion. You can come to rest. you can be happy. It is not necessary to go on with, these great plans to conquer this world in one fashion or another. Nothing is gained by it. You never conquer the loved one. You are enamored. You are in love. No conquering goes on at all. You only start conquering when you become afraid, when you fear this separation. Then you get anxious and start craving all kinds of satisfaction.
So I recommend that you meditate, then on the other hand you cannot meditate. You cannot willfully go about some program or other because that is a way of conquering rather than of being in love. You must realize this real meditation through the consideration we enjoy face to face.
If you will begin to rest in the current of the being in my Company, then you will begin to feel my influence. I will be of use to you in that case, but not until then. If your approach to me remains conventional, you are not at ease, you are not rested in this current, and you cannot duplicate me, you can not feel it. There is no initiatory force in our meeting.
You will really only discover the force of my influence when you begin to come to rest, in meditation and so forth is where you find it. When you are rested in this current then you can feel my work.
Because I am simply present as that. I do not have any plans you see. I have nothing to do with it. I am simply standing here, and if you recognize me then this current is intensified. You will fall out of the point of view of this dream, even though you continue in your ordinary relations within it. You may also, in the course of this meditation, this living, have the opportunity to be involved in all kinds of other dreams, to live and perceive in other forms, other dimensions entirely. Not that you strive for that. That is another kind of craving, another kind of effort toward victory that is based on a failure of recognition, a failure to presume this Ignorance which is native to our birth. All the conventional yogic efforts are kinds of craving. People will sit for hours a day manipulating themselves with various techniques, hoping to have this and that kind of remarkable experience, you see. It is just an extension of worldliness. An extension of same thing that is your suffering in this gross appearance. You must simply be relieved of all of that through the presumption of Ignorance and the recognition of the Condition of these conditions arising.
That recognition simply rests in the current of the being felt to be bodily, in this body sense at first. And as we come to rest in it, it is enjoyed in all kinds of ways, none of which are in itself fulfilling as mere experience. They are simply the secondary reflections of our fulfillment of the Law, our present resting in that Condition which does not have any content, which is unspeakable. Call it God, Brahman, the Self. It is the only Happiness, and it is the foundation of all happiness in the midst of conditions here or anywhere else.