Meditate on the Self.

Q: We are accustomed to making distinctions between things. You say 'Meditate that you are the Self'. If I try to generate this feeling 'I am the Self' it will not be the real thing. It will just be another idea in the mind. Can thinking about this idea really help me?

When I say, 'Meditate on the Self' I am using you to be the Self, not think about it. Be aware of what remains when thoughts stop. Be aware of the consciousness that is the origin of all your thoughts. Be that consciousness. Feel that that is what you really are. If you do this you are meditating on the Self. But if you cannot stabilise in that consciousness because your vasanas are too strong and too active, it is beneficial to hold onto the thought 'I am the Self; I am everything'. If you meditate in this way you will not be cooperating with the vāsanā that are blocking your Self-awareness. If you don't cooperate with your vāsanās, sooner or later they are bound to leave you.

If this method doesn't appeal to you, then just watch the mind with full attention. Whenever the mind wanders, become aware of it. See how thoughts connect with each other and watch how this ghost called mind catches hold of all your thoughts and says 'This is my thought'. Watch the ways of the mind without identifying with them in any way. If you give your mind your full, detached attention, you begin to understand the futility of all mental activities. Watch the mind wandering here and there, seeking out useless or unnecessary things or ideas which will ultimately only create misery for itself. It gives us an incentive to stay detached from all our thoughts. Ultimately, if we try hard enough, it gives us the ability to remain as consciousness, unaffected by transient thoughts.

Ignorance of Self.

Q: The mind doesn't want to be ignored. It wants to spin round and round for every. I came to you because I thought that you might be able to help me to gain some control over my wayward thoughts.

Identifying oneself with the body and the mind results in ignorance of the Self. This is how ego takes birth. Detaching ourselves and disengaging from the body and the mind results in the death of the ego.

Bhagavan once said to me" 'The one who limits the Self by believing himself to be the body and the mind has killed his own Self. For killing the Self he has to be punished. The punishment is birth and death and continuous misery.'

Q: Is the ending of misery determined by prarabdha karma, or can we bring it near by personal effort?

The misery comes to an end only by realising the Self, not by any other means.

Q: Can this happen at any time?

Here and now you are already the Self. You don't need time to realise the Self, all you need is correct understanding. Each moment you identify yourself with the body and the mind, you are going in the direction of ego and misery. The moment you give up that identification. you are moving towards your real Self, towards happiness.

Life is a long dream

Q: I feel strongly that life is a long dream but I cannot see through the dream. For many years it has been like this.

If you really believed that all life was a dream, nothing in the world would ever trouble you. If you still have problems and worries, like not being able to see through the dream, it means that you have still not completely ceased to identify with what temporarily appears in your consciousness.

You should enquire, 'Who is not able to penetrate through the dream?'

The true 'I' is not identified with the dream. If you don't forget your real Self, waking, dream and sleeping do not affect you. The things around you are always changing, but what we really are remains changeless.

Pure existence, 'I am' without anything predicated or attached to it, is common to all. No one can deny his own existence. In this 'I am' there are no limitations, but when we wrongly identify this 'I am' with the body and the mind and create a limited identity for ourselves, misery begins.

Only in this human birth are the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep provided along with the sense of something that is beyond them, something that can be experienced and lived.

We see a dream, yet on waking up the dream disappears and we exist in the waking state. On going to sleep the whole world disappears. By observing these three states we come to understand that it is their nature to appear and disappear. If we investigate the matter further by carefully scrutinising the nature of this thing called mind, we can have the direct experience that consciousness alone is what we really are. When we cease to identify with the body and the mind we become aware that this pure consciousness is unaffected by any of the changes and events that appear to take place within it. 

The only purpose of life is to learn how to abide in that consciousness. We have to learn how to rest in turiya, the fourth and primal state which is the witness of the other three states.

Doing any form of sadhana without first understanding that the individual self is non-existent is self-indulgence. It is a form of spiritual entertainment in which the illusory 'I' plays games with itself.

Saint Tayumanuvar once said, 'Why all these maha yogas? All these yogas are maya!'

If you try to meditate without understanding that your real nature is Self, and Self alone, your meditation practice will only lead you to more mental bondage.

Bhagavan once said, 'To keep the mind in the Self all you have to do is remain still'

To realise the Self you don't actually have to do anything except be still. Just give up identifying with the mind and hold onto the Self. That is enough. Be still and cultivate the awareness 'I am the Self; the Self is all'. What difficulties can arise from doing a simple practice like this?

Waking, Dreaming, Deep Sleep

Waking, dreaming and deep sleep are like a long dream happening in consciousness. If we see a dream, and are involved in that dream, all the events that we see will seem real for the duration of the dream. But when we awake, the dream disappears and we realise that nothing ever really happened except in our minds. When you awake to real consciousness, the whole process of waking, dreaming and sleeping disappears like last night's dream. You immediately understand that it was never real. Right now, because we are ignorant of the Self, we are dreaming this world and imagining that it is real. We are so engrossed in the dream, we believe that it is the only reality.

This waking life is just a long dream which keeps our attention away from what we really are. If you take the attitude that all the happenings in the world are dream events, your mind becomes tranquil. It is only when you take the dream world to be real that you get agitated.

Is it better to want only the formless Self?

I once heard Bhagavan say to Paul Brunton: 'If you don upasana [meditation] on the all-pervading Self, you will get infinite energy.' All beings, all things, all people in the world are your own Self. They are all indivisibly part of you. If you can see all as your Self, how can you do harm to anyone else? When you have that clear vision, whatever you do to others, you know that it is done to your Self only.

To like one thing instead of another is samsara: to like and love all things is wisdom. If one sees from this realisation that all people are one's own Self, one enjoys the same peace that one enjoys in the deep-sleep state. The difference is, one enjoyed it here and now while one is awake. 

How can I hold on to the Self.

The mind is always flowing like an unstoppable river. Most of the time I am not even capable of reaching the Self. How can i hold onto something that i can't even get near?


When it rises, the mind automatically goes out to the world. If you do self-enquiry you can train it to flow towards the Self. In deep sleep the mind automatically goes to the Self, but you are not aware of it. Through the steady practice of self-enquiry the mind can be trained in such a way that it automatically flows towards the Self in the waking and dream states. It is very difficult at first, but with practice it can be done. Repeated self-enquiry makes the mind got back into the Self. Other methods may produce good experiences but the good experiences will not make the mind go back into the Self and stay there.

Staying healthy

Is it good to devote some time to staying healthy? Should we do hatha yoga, for example, to keep the body in good condition?

It is difficult to do sadhana if the body is not in good condition. Hatha yoga is one way of staying healthy. Bhagavan used to say, however, that out of all the different asanas, nididhyasana is the best. He would then add that nididhyasana means abidance in the Self.

Don't pay too much attention to the body. If you worry about the well-being of your body, you identify with it more and more. Look on it as a useful vehicle: maintain it, fuel it properly  and repair it if it breaks down, but don't become attached to it. If you can keep your attention on the Self without being distracted by unpleasant bodily sensations, you are healthy enough to do sadhana. If you do your meditation earnestly and continuously you will begin to find that health problems will not distract you. When your abidance in the Self is firm and strong, you cease to be aware of the body and its pains.