Mata Amrtananda mayi

GO BEYOND MIND

During the woman’s meditations, a woman  had been having various experiences, and she wanted to know how to take them: 

D(Devotee) : “Amma, what sort of attitude and understanding should one have to the various experiences one undergoes during meditation? How much does one’s mental attitude affect how we experience these? 

For instance, at one time it might be a joyous experience of motherly love and, at another time, something very impersonal, like forces of nature, like little flashes of lightning and strong gusts of wind acting upon one’s being… 

What role does the Guru play in all of this? Why do many people go insane or become delusional and egoistic and only a few safely make it to the Goal?”

Amma : Such experiences arise out of innocence. And that although one can take encouragement from such experiences, that they should not be given much importance.

“Because of one’s innocence one may have such experiences; one may feel motherly love, see divine lights or feel a cool breeze… But you should go beyond all such experiences,  “You are on the path to realizing your oneness with God, with the Self. 

While travelling on a path, we see many things around us. But if we stop to see these things and forget our goal, we may never reach the goal.”

All experiences are at the level of the mind and that the goal of spiritual life is to go beyond the mind. Ultimately such experiences are much like dreams and, as such, they should only be given the same importance as a dream.

“The real important thing is the control we have over our mind in all situations”. 

“If someone becomes angry at us, we should not react and become angry also. We should reflect, ‘Whom am I becoming angry at?’ In such situations we should remember that it is all the Atma, the Supreme Self. We should think, ‘The consciousness that is within me is within that person also. Can consciousness become angry? 

And if all is one, to whom can it express its anger?’ We should give more importance to the Self and not the body.”

“When we eat sugar, we experience the sweetness. But we still are different from the sugar. We shouldn’t be an experiencer, we should become That, we should become the sugar, we should become the sweetness.”.

Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Embodiments of Love!

You have to enquire as to what extent you have understood the principle of love, which is un- iformly present in all. 

Man is carried away by his identification with the body, so he perceives diversity in creation. In fact, it is unity alone that is behind the apparent diversity. 

Whatever differences are there, they are only the creations of your mind. If you want to eliminate these differences and realize the principle of unity in diversity, you have to realise your true nature. You experience diversity when you turn your perception away from this fact of unity. 

Recognize the principle of unity. You are God. God is not separate from you. It is a mistake to consider your- self separate from God. This difference is the result of your deluded vision. When you rectify this defect in your vision, you will realise “I am I”.

When you identify Sai Baba with the physical form, you become separate from Him. It is only these feelings of identification with the physical form that create differences between individuals. The feelings of “I” and “mine” are behind all this multiplicity of forms. If you stand before a mirror, you see your image. Even if there are many mirrors, you see the same image. Though the mirrors are many, the image is one. Realise this oneness behind multiplicity.

Embodiments of Love! Students! Boys and Girls!

Try to know the fundamental principle of oneness. If you know this, everything else will be- come known to you. This world has a plethora of forms but there is one divinity, which per- meates all these forms. Know this truth. 

Ekam sath viprah bahudha vadanti (Truth is one, but wise men call it by many names). You see diversity due to the effect of illusion (maya). There exists only unity everywhere, not diversity. It is your illusion that causes diversity. Forget this diversity and contemplate on divinity. You may ascribe any number of names and forms to God but God is one.

At one time, Radha realised her oneness with Krishna. But later she was overcome by delusion and started considering herself different from Krishna. This feeling of separateness is a big mistake. Reminding Radha of her true identity, Narada told her that she had no separate identity. It was her mistake that she had identified herself with her name, he said. He added that she was not separate from Krishna, and she was, in fact, Krishna. 

Sri Nisargadatta maharaj

A Dialogue with a visitor 

Maharaj: During your entire lifetime, you do not have any permanent identity. Whatever you consider yourself to be changes from moment to moment. Nothing is constant.

Visitor: And what you think you are going to become changes too, with time, in spite of yourself.

Maharaj : That change is also made possible by the child-conciousness. Because of that, all these changes take place. That is why you must grasp this principle.

If you really want to understand this, you must give up your identification with the body. By all means, make use of the body, but don’t consider yourself to be the body while acting in this world. 

Identify yourself with the consciousness, which dwells in the body; with that identity, you should act in the world. Will it be possible? 

If you identify yourself with the body, you will feel that you are dying, but in reality there is no death because you are not the body. Let the body be there or not be there, your existence is always there; it is eternal. 

Now who or what has heard my talk? It is not the ear, not the physical body, but that knowledge which is in the body; that has heard me. So identify yourself with that knowledge, that consciousness. Whatever happiness we enjoy in this world is only imaginary. 

A patient who is suffering from cancer is, as it were, all the time silently chanting “I’m dying from cancer”; and that chant proceeds without any efforts. Similarly, in your case: Take up that chant “I am consciousness.” That chant, too, should go on without any effort. One who is constantly awake in his true nature — having this knowledge about himself — is liberated.

A patient suffering from terminal cancer always remembers his state and ultimately undergoes that very end; so much is certain. Similarly, one who remembers that he is the knowledge, that he is the consciousness, has that end, he becomes the Parabrahman.