Swami Mukundananda |
I was once traveling in the desert in
India. I traveled for over a month and always found the most beautiful
landscapes before me, beautiful lakes and all that. One day I was very thirsty
and I wanted to have a drink at one of these lakes; but when I approached that
lake it vanished. Immediately with a blow came into my brain the idea that this
was a mirage about which I had read all my life; and then I remembered and
smiled at my folly, that for the last month all the beautiful landscapes and
lakes I had been seeing were this mirage, but I could not distinguish them
then. The next morning I again began my march; there was the lake and the
landscape, but with it immediately came the idea, "This is a mirage."
Once known it had lost its power of illusion. So this illusion of the universe
will break one day. The whole of this will vanish, melt away. This is
realization. Philosophy is no joke or talk. It has to be realised; this body will
vanish, this earth and everything will vanish, this idea that I am the body or the
mind will for some time vanish, or if the Karma is ended it will disappear, never
to come back; but if one part of the Karma remains, then as a potter's wheel,
after the potter has finished the pot, will sometimes go on from the past momentum,
so this body, when the delusion has vanished altogether, will go on for some
time.
Again this world will come, men and
women and animals will come, just as the mirage came the next day, but not with
the same force; along with it will come the idea that I know its nature now,
and it will cause no bondage, no more pain, nor grief, nor misery. Whenever
anything miserable will come, the mind will be able to say, "I know you as
hallucination." When a man has reached that state, he is called Jivanmukta,
living-free", free even while living. The aim and end in this life for the
Jnâna-Yogi is to become this Jivanmakta, "living-free". He is
Jivanmukta who can live in this world without being attached. He is like the
lotus leaves in water, which are never wetted by the water. He is the highest
of human beings, nay, the highest of all beings, for he has realised his
identity with the Absolute, he has realised that he is one with God. So long as
you think you have the least difference from God, fear will seize you, but when
you have known that you are He, that there is no difference, entirely no
difference, that you are He, all of Him, and the whole of Him, all fear ceases.
"There, who sees whom? Who worships whom? Who talks to whom? Who hears
whom? Where one sees another, where one talks to another, where one hears
another, that is little. Where none sees none, where none speaks to none, that
is the highest, that is the great, that is the Brahman."
Mirage in the Desert |
Therefore, dare to be free, dare to go
as far as your thought leads, and dare to carry that out in your life. It is
very hard to come to Jnâna. It is for the bravest and most daring, who dare to
smash all idols, not only intellectual, but in the senses. This body is not I;
it must go. All sorts of curious things may come out of this. A man stands up
and says, "I am not the body, therefore my headache must be cured";
but where is the headache if not in his body? Let a thousand headaches and a
thousand bodies come and go. What is that to me? I have neither birth nor
death; father or mother I never had; friends and foes I have none, because they
are all I. I am my own friend, and I am my own enemy. I am
Existence-
Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. I am He, I am He. If in a thousand bodies I
am suffering from fever and other ills, in millions of bodies I am healthy. If
in a thousand bodies I am starving, in other thousand bodies I am feasting. If
in thousands of bodies I am suffering misery, in thousands of bodies I am happy. Who shall blame whom, who praise whom? Whom to seek, whom to avoid? I
seek none, nor avoid any, for I am the entire universe. I praise myself, I
blame myself, I suffer for myself, I am happy at my own will, I am free. This
is the Jnâni, the brave and daring. Let the whole universe tumble down; he
smiles and says it never existed, it was all a hallucination. He sees the
universe tumble down. Where was it! Where has it gone!
Swami Mukundananda lecturing on Vedas |
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