Oneness - Clarity and Joy of Life through Advaita by Madhukar - HTML preview

THE SECRET OF THE MASTER

Interview with the Lion of Lucknow, Sri H.W.L. Poonja, by Madhukar, April 1994 in Lucknow, India.

Who are you?

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: I am That.

This and that, or only That?

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: Not this or that; that That is that That. Like with a finger pointing to the moon. If you hold on to the finger you can’t see the moon. If you hold on to that, you can’t see That. [Laughter]

What is the essence of your teaching or nonteaching?

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: I teach about That which cannot be attained by any teaching. My teaching cannot be taught. I have no teaching for the essence from where all teachings arise. This essence doesn’t need any teaching or nonteaching, for it is beyond everything. It is from where all words rise.

From the very source, from the very source of Being.

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: From the very source from where everything comes, even this speech.

Your disciples talk about you as a “realized” being. Are you one?

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: I do not say that myself, and neither do I have a name plate which says, “Here goes an enlightened person.” No, between you and me, I don’t find any difference. I never say that I am realized.

Many speak about this, saying that you are realized. Is there any difference between realization and enlightenment?

 

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SRI H.W.L. POONJA: Many people say that I am a realized person. This is due to their notions about realization and, therefore, they think that I am a realized person, but I don’t see any difference between them and me.

And yes, though we use these words interchangeably, there is a difference between realization and enlightenment. Realization is realized after some sadhana or practice or method, and what is realized was not there before. To realize through any method is called realization.

Enlightenment is to be aware of something that was not clear before—like a diamond that you think is a pebble, but later on you find out that it is a diamond.

Light comes after knowing that it is not a pebble, and thus you start giving value to it.

It is beyond awareness and enlightenment. This is the essence. Who could be aware of awareness? And who could be enlightened, because there is no darkness at all. It is already there, and it is revealed when the dust of your notions is cleared away. Then it will come up itself, and you and It will merge together, and you will not see a difference between you and It. You will not see anything else. No words can explain it.

When there is a rough diamond, you don’t see it is a diamond before you cut or polish it.

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: Even then, it is a piece of charcoal, carbon. You may cut it according to the shape to fit in your ring or necklace, but the diamond-ness is the same. The shapes are different, forms are different, and purpose is different. But in its original nature it is just carbon dioxide.

In the West people either believe in God, or they don’t. Is there any God, and if there is, what and who is it?

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: Let people believe or disbelieve. God is not affected by any kind of belief. God is your thought and is your own creation of the mind. You have to be there to speak: “There is God.” Before your birth there was no God, because you were not there, and the thought was not there. Who created even the creator? Creation, preservation and destruction just a thought.

Is Beingness the same as God?

 

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SRI H.W.L. POONJA: Beingness is very different from God. God is a word created by you. Beingness is just Beingness. Nobody is there to create it. It is beyond creations and destructions. That in where all the creations abide is called Being.

It seems that one develops detachment and relaxation after years of spiritual practice. Is there any process or progress before realization?

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: It is beyond attachments and detachments. When one detaches from that which one is attached to, one gets attached to something else. So detachment needs attachment to something else, and therefore it is not detachment. They coexist. Attachment depends on detachment, and detachment depends on attachment.

The essence is beyond all notions and is untouched by imagination, and there is no process or progress in it. To progress is to be given some method from the past by somebody. Any teaching that he has followed gets dumped on you, and then you start practicing. So whatever method you start, you have in mind what you want to attain. This attainment is preplanned attainment. “I have to meditate for a number of years; after that I will get it.” This planning is your own thought creation. Actually, there is no process to attain, because it is already Here. If it is not already Here, and you get it through some method, you will lose it. Any gain is lost someday or another. But if it is not attained, you will not lose it because it is already Here and always will be Here.

You say no books or practice is necessary, but you yourself have read many books and scriptures and have done thousands of hours of practice in this lifetime. Why then do you give this advice?

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: Because I was just a boy of seven or eight, and some experience came and revealed itself. I didn’t work for it or do any practice; it just revealed itself. No one could explain this to me, and it was not described in any book either. Later on, I tried to read the books written by many ancient saints, including the Gita, Bhagavatam, the Upanishads, and even the Vedas, but I didn’t see anything that tallies with my own abidance. I found that nobody ever spoke of That which I-Am is. For this reason, I read many books and came in contact with many gurus from north to south. But everything that they spoke about was all in the books, and they just followed this like sheep running one behind the other. No one that I saw had realized the truth and nobody spoke

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about it. Therefore, I rejected all the teachings, all the books, and all the state-ments that anybody so far had made about That.

Like Buddha. After he left his palace he went to yoga teachers and many other teachers. He went on rejecting. At one stage he went to people who were performing very rigid, severe penance. They were hanging like monkeys, with feet fastened on the branches of the trees. He said: “Oh, this is not what I want.” He just rejected. Now he quietly sat down under a Bodhi Tree and something just came up. Ananda came to him: “Sir, what is the experience?” He didn’t speak. At the age of 29 and the rest of his life, 51 years, he tried to explain, but he could not because it cannot be grasped by the mind. Nor there is any word. Therefore, none has ever spoken. Now there are sutras to explain the realization that the Buddha had. Or, when Kashyap comes to him, offering a flower, he looks at the flower and smiles, and Kashyap gets enlightened. Now people are making research on it: What does this smile mean? [Giggling] Nobody can explain it. The flower is there. Who can smile at the flower, first of all?

What did he see in the flower that he smiled and Kashyap got it?

Now when I speak, it is not the object of speech that I am speaking about.

Some people catch it, and they cannot explain what has happened to them. For 60 years I have asked people to describe it, but they cannot. Quite often some people here say: “We got everything; there is peace, there is happiness, there is a beauty.” I ask: “What is it?” They say: “We can’t speak.” Because the intellect and mind, which are the basis of explanation, do not accompany you. You are quite alone. This aloneness was the same that I experience, and you ask me to explain. But I cannot explain. It has never been explained so far. There is no mind or intellect. You are just alone. They don’t know what they got, but they know they got it. It is not even an experience because experience depends on the mind to create an experiencer, an object of experience, and their connection, which is the experience—all of which can be explained. But what is beyond the mind cannot be explained. Even the Book of Knowledge, the Vedas, says: “neti, neti,” after four Vedas. This book, written by Vyasa 25,000 years ago, is very honest to speak that it is not that which they could write. The best explanation is neti, neti, “Not this, not this, I do not know.”

So, no practice is necessary?

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: You need practice when you find that you are missing something. Like if you want to become an engineer. Before you have been to engineering college, you are not an engineer. So you have to practice, you

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spend 7 years in the college, then you get a degree, that you are a bachelor or master engineer. But here you don’t need practice because it is already Here.

What you gain you will lose. What is already there you just have to see: Who I am just now? Not finding it through some method, because the mind is cheating. The mind gestures: Do this and do that and you listen to it. The mind has been cheating you for millions of years; therefore, don’t listen to your mind now.

Keep quiet. It will reveal itself to itself.

In my native language German, the word for mind is “Geist”. It means the same as ghost, like a non existing entity. In German “the mind” and “ghost” are the same.

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: [Knowing Madhukar is from Amsterdam] All the Dutch people who came to me from the Netherlands, Amsterdam, only speak through the mind. I try to take them beyond the mind. They say that it is not possible because in Amsterdam we have to deal with people, which we can’t do without the mind. I say: You don’t need the mind at all. The mind is going to cheat you.

And tell me one person who is happy with the mind. None at all. Neither the kings nor the emperors, not even Alexander the Great, was happy about it. You are only happy when there is no mind. When you go to sleep you have no mind and you are happy. Why? Because in the waking state nobody is happy and in the dream state also no one is happy—some tiger is pouncing on him, some robber is standing in front of him, all these kinds of dreams in the dream state and in our waking state. Because of our relationships, nobody is happy. Immediately when you sleep, you are quite happy, peaceful, and it is not this state. It is beyond all these states and then you feel that you are That now. Therefore, you are happy. Some friend comes to you the next day asking how you slept.

You say: “Excellent, not even a dream.” Who was experiencing the happiness while sleeping? So, you are That!

Apropos dreaming: In my last dream yesterday before writing these questions I dreamt about you in front of your house saying to me: “Come into the house!”

Then the dream changed and you said: “We go for a walk together.” [Papaji giggles.] For realizing the Self one has to drop this mind. But how can the mind be separate from the Self? Isn’t mind just another creative expression of life?

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: First of all you have to see something to drop it. Like that locket that you are wearing around the neck. When you go and swim in the

 

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ocean, it may be washed away, so you have to keep it on the beach to save it.

But the mind is first of all not seen. The mind no one has seen. So, how can you drop something that doesn’t exist? It is your concept only that there is a mind; and to be happy you have to drop it. You need not drop the mind because it doesn’t exist. Let it be there it will be useful to you.

Is this life so precious because we can realize That? Is this the only way to realize in the human form?

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: First of all there is no form at all. Because it is a concept that there is a universe, and men and animals are there. There are about 8.4

million species here. Among these species to become a man it takes 35 million years. So, after having become a human being, most are still not humans. They are just animals. They have somehow disconnected with their tails. [Laughter]

Instead of walking horizontally they have learned to walk vertically like gorillas who are also trying to stand up. This is the most precious incarnation, as a human, because here you know that you have some doubt. You can question, “Who am I?” A pig, a donkey, cannot ask this question “Who am I?” Straight-away they are taken to the slaughterhouse. Now we have a chance not to go to the butchery. Butchery means death. Everybody who is born has to face a butcher, the god Yamaha or death. It will not leave any man who has not realized what one is. This gives us an opportunity to know “Who am I?” Not the other species, not even the 6 billion human beings, and there will be hardly 60

who can find out who they really are. Now, we represent under one roof people from many countries. Some thousands of people came here. Why only few among six billion people? If you make a survey not even 1% from every country has known who he is from the beginning.

If we give the example of an enlightened person we have to go to the past.

Twenty-six hundred years ago there was one, Gautama, who became Buddha.

Now, for the first time, here, this Satsang in Lucknow, has made realization very easy. You do not need to go to the Himalayan caves, not meditate, not repeat any mantras, not make any pilgrimages, not do any charities, but just spend a second of your life span. Just one second and I guarantee you are free—in this very second, this day itself. Why postpone it? This is the first time in history. In ancient times the kings left their kingdoms and went for penance.

After penance some Menaka comes in front of them in the form of a beautiful woman, and there ends their penance. Many Menakas are here. It’s not a problem to live with the Menakas. Enlightenment has to do with your own Self, not

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physical contact. If a woman comes, live with her. There is no problem. But even when you live with the Menakas you are not touched. Like Krishna who had thousands of girlfriends. And no girl could touch him. He knew how to keep away from anything, how to be untouched. One day it so happened there was a festival where the women fast all day and in the night, when they see the stars, they go to the goddess and pray, and only then they can drink even water. But this morning the river is flooded and no ferry can take them to the other side.

There comes Krisna asking them what are you waiting for? They answer, to-night is the Anand Shakravati festival and we are fasting and we can’t drink water, and no ferry is plying. We are waiting. He says: You go and address Yamuna: “O, Yamuna, if this Krishna has never touched any woman from beginning till today, then give us the way.” Everybody started laughing. “This man is fondling us, playing with us and then he says he has not touched us.” The elders said he is a liar. “But let us prove his lie in front of him.” So they addressed jokingly to Yamuna: “If this man has never touched any woman, please give us way.” And Yamuna parted and gave way. What was this? What was this magic?

You can still keep yourself untouched. None has ever touched you. Even your body has not been touched. Your mind, intellect, senses, can’t touch it.

And you don’t know where this diamond is. Someone, a rare person, can tell you this secret just now. Otherwise you will be led by teachers who will ask you to do sadhanas, and meditate this way and perform the yogas and mahayogas, whatever. But none has ever attained it. Because it is already Here. As it is already Here, why practice for it? It is simply a waste of time. Here you are not wasting time.

Absolutely my experience, I am not wasting any time.

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: But just one second out of your life span you have to give.

This one second doesn’t belong to time. In our books it is called instant, ksha-nam. It is equal to 4500 parts of a minute. I call it “a second” because the English translation doesn’t exist. This much time, 4500 parts of a minute, you can very well afford to spend on yourself and be free of all sufferings, worries, births and deaths. This you don’t have to practice, just realize what I speak, do not practice, just hear what I speak. If you don’t feel what I speak about, you come in front of everybody to me and say: “I didn’t get it, I did as you said but I did not get it.” Please come in front of me and prove that I am untrue.

 

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I will definitely take my chance. This opportunity, I will take it!

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: Why do you take chances? You are not going to miss any chance because there is nothing to do. Nothing to do. During this time, during this instant, you speak what you were speaking. “I take my chance” is not during this instant I speak of. It is neither before or after. Within this instant of time you speak: “I take my chance.” This needs several instants. During that instant you will speak, and I will see how you can speak. The time is so little, so little, that not even half a word will come out of it. Therefore, it will make you quiet, and when you are quiet, that means you have attained something which none has ever attained.

I can see that anybody can afford this time, and let us not miss this human incarnation when we don’t have to go anywhere, no hardship, we simply have a lot of fun here, we have music, we have singing and dancing, side by side. The result is supreme. When you go into the cave like wolves and tigers, you meditate, and I have seen no results, and I have been to the high altitudes of the Himalayas. In one case, I was going on the way to Vishnuprayag like the five Pandava brothers. They went to heaven by foot. I came to know about that, so I also wanted to go. So I started to go. On the way there was a man from Bengal doing penance. It was very cold so I asked if I could spend the night with him.

He said yes, he was just cooking food. It was a very small cave, maybe 6 feet by 6 feet, and he said, “I will sleep in the kitchen and you can sleep there.”

It was a stone bench covered with Asian cloth and the pillow was also of Asian cloth. Inside the pillow was sand. This man was living in such sacrifice. I said to myself: ”I don’t want the pillow because it is not comfortable. I can sleep without this sand pillow.” When I removed it I found under it a book of sex. This man has left his country for doing penance, but actually he was studying pornogra-phy. This is the result of going to the caves. If you have to study sex living in such a cold place, why not stay here? Why keep a woman in your head? Why not to keep her under your arm? So I thought it was no way for rejection.

This journey was very long; I still continued on to find the place where Yudhishthira was gone with his four brothers and their wife, Draupadi. Snow was everywhere as they walked over a glacier. One dropped, shouting, “I am dropping” but Yudhishthira did not look back. Another dropped, the third brother dropped, Arjuna also dropped, Draupadi also slipped. Nobody, no one, can help on the glacier.Yudhishthira was the only one entering heaven with his body. They say he went with a dog, and dogs are not allowed in heaven. So I guess this dog means Dharma. Dharma will follow you wherever you go, you

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must be so chaste and pure. Yudhishthira never spoke any lie throughout his life. Therefore, even Dharma followed him like a dog. And he is the only one who had gone in body into the heavens. Therefore, with that intention I also wanted to go there. It was very cold, all around snow. I saw a place and a person just like Shiva with a bearskin on his bare body and one very beautiful woman next to him. So I went there, and she invited me to have food with them.

There was nothing around, and on the ground was snow, and she gave me a bearskin to sit on and she made paisam for me. I was looking at what she was cooking here. What I ate tasted just like honey mixed with local cereal; it was so delicious. I can still enjoy the taste many years after it happened; it stuck to my fingers. This I saw. Then I abandoned my journey because I thought, “This is enough. Let me not go to heaven when I have had direct darshan of Lord Shiva and Parvati.” So I was satisfied and received the blessing, and came back.

I think the Gods must have been very happy with me and I didn’t do any penance. Others go on performing penances and repeat: “Om namah Shivaya, Om namah Shivaya” all their lives and can’t even dream about Shiva. Many bhakti people and ISKCON people I see, and I ask them: “Did you see Krishna in your dream?” because I saw Bhaktivedanta himself. They say: “No, for us there is no other Krishna except this stone image.” These are the teachings that have been given to these people, and they don’t go beyond it. What can be seen by the eye is not truth. It is something else.

Recently I was in Brindavan and met a young man from Russia who came up to me and asked: “Do you know Radha? Can you show her to me?” I said,

“Yes, I can!” He wanted to see Radha and had come to India to the ISKCON

headquarters to inquire there for her. They showed him a stone image, telling him: “This is Radha.” He was not satisfied with a stone. Then he was sent to me and I invited him for dinner where he asked me many questions like, “What relation do you have with Radha?” I answered, “She is my wife.” “I never heard anyone speaking like that,” he said. “Yes, you go and ask her!” Then he could see and speak to her directly. And he went back to Moscow where he is dancing in the streets telling everybody to go to Brindavan to meet this man who can show Radha in human form. It all depends on the purity of the man.

Many of your followers are so-called Osho sannyasins. Two of them told me seriously the other day that Osho has entered your body and is speaking through you [Laughter]. Is there any connection between the man from Poona and you?

 

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SRI H.W.L. POONJA: Many people say that Osho is speaking through me. I tell you how I can explain this. The body of Osho died, was cremated, and the ashes are there, the Samadhi is there. But his mission was not fulfilled because he died very young due to some trouble inflicted on him during his stay in America.

When his soul went away, it was waiting to fulfill its ambitions and to find an appropriate person to fulfill his mission. That’s why people speak about it.

In many other cases also, this is a fact: the soul is hovering in the air to find a particular womb, to be born of a perfect person so that it can fulfill its mission, as in the case of saint Gyaneshwar who wrote in ancient Marathi. But ancient Marathi is now not understood. So there was a saint called Eknath, he dreamt that he went to Alandi, where a peepal tree, a Bodhi Tree, is standing at the Samadhi place of Ganeshwar who died at the age of 21. He was told, “People now don’t understand my teachings, so you explain in local Marathi spoken by the masses that they understand my teaching.” Now there are researchers on Gyaneshwar, and a group of professors, Prof. Karnik, Kolkarni, Patel and Dandekar, came to me when I was working in the mining cooperation in Goa.

They somehow heard that this man can give them the meaning of what Gyaneshwar said, when he appeared in a dream to Eknath and said: “The shoot of the root has entered my neck.” Eknath wrote about it but couldn’t explain it. What is the root? The researchers now say: Gyaneshwar was such a yogi, that he could fly in the air, multi-locate, appear in the same time in many places, why can’t he remove this one root of the tree? Nobody could explain it.

So they came to me, not knowing that I was not a Marathi-speaking person, and asked this question. I said: “What he wanted to express is not understood.

Therefore remove this old type of Marathi and speak to the masses in the common language. This is the meaning of ‘striking the root.’” Everybody agreed.

They asked many other questions.

This thing happens when I speak; it comes by itself. I don’t know Sanskrit, I have not studied it, I do not even know Hindi perfectly, but I can explain the meanings of the Gita in a way that I have not heard from anyone. Nor the meaning of the Upanishads, not from Hindi books. No one can comment as I can comment. So this is something from beyond. It comes. It makes use of a person to speak easily in a common language that everybody can understand.

All these people who are here in Satsang are mostly English-speaking persons, so they easily follow what I speak. So any soul can make use of any person. As Buddha spoke in Pali. Now, Pali is out-of-date. Therefore, the books, the sutras, especially the Nirvana Sutra, which I studied, are in French. Originally, they are in Pali. But who would read it? Therefore, the books have been trans-145

lated into many languages that we can understand. Merely reading books is not sufficient. If possible, find a person who is yet in his physical form and can clarify your doubts. Everybody has doubts, why not find a person who can clear your doubts and go near that man when he is available?

But most teachers are only preachers. They are preaching some dogmas.

They have no teaching at all, only preaching. This preaching is heard mostly in the West, and people are following these preachers of yoga and other classes.

Indian teachers have mushroomed in the States, just making money, just business people who don’t know what to teach. I have seen some Indians in Switzerland having an ashram. Maybe you know this teacher in Frauenfeld in his big, impressive complex. I had a meeting with him there. But no one knows what to teach.

All these teachers are preachers: None of them is a Satguru. And the Satguru has no teaching to give you. He doesn’t prescribe you any method. He directly reveals within your own Self.

Where will you go after you leave your body? Will you ever come back to planet Earth?

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: If I come back I must go, and if I go I must come back.

Therefore, the truth is neither I came nor I go. [Laughter] This is the truth.

Who goes? Who comes? You speak of the body, not of your own Self. The Self doesn’t come and doesn’t go. Why should it go anywhere? What will he do going from here to somewhere else? He is not a businessman! [Laughter] Everything is included in the Self. Why should you go? The king does not desire,”I want to buy that house or apartment or place,” because the whole kingdom belongs to him. The king has no desire to buy any property because it all belongs to him. Therefore, when you become a king you will have no desire to go anywhere. Just a clap of your hands and all is fulfilled.

Does Papaji have any ego?

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: Yes I have! [Laughter] I have ego. She likes to serve me as a maidservant. Without a maidservant the house cannot run. She is very helpful and takes care of arising situations without even telling me. I have no complaint against the ego. Let her live in my house, I have no problem with her. I don’t find any enmity between her and me. She is quite happy.

 

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Some people are surprised to see me eat ice cream and Coca-Cola [big laughter] because no swami takes Coca-Cola and ice cream. But the ice cream has nothing to do with enlightenment and enlightenment is not affected by ice cream. The ice cream goes straight from the tongue to the stomach, and my enlightenment doesn’t dislike ice cream, so when the ice cream comes I take it.

I have no trouble because I have no restrictions. I don’t have any do’s and don’ts as the swamis practice. I don’t belong to those who say: “you shouldn’t do this and that.”

Do whatever you want to do and live a normal life, not trying to become something different and separating yourself from the society. Wearing malas [ a rosary] and dyeing your clothes has nothing to do with That. It doesn’t matter if you wear white or black or orange or how you behave. These things belong to religions. Do’s and don’ts are religions: “If you go to church you will go to heaven. If you don’t you will go to hell after death.”

I don’t tell you to do something after death, I just say to make use of the time before death and live and act as you like, but in a way which doesn’t touch you.

No body contacts will interfere with your understanding, so I do not prescribe wearing this or that kind of dress or behaving in a certain way.

Why is it that so many seekers come and experience this state in Lucknow here with you and then it drops away when they return home to the West or wherever?

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: Because they think that they got something new in Lucknow that they did not have before; therefore, they are bound to lose it.

I tell them that you are not to gain anything or to lose anything, but to understand that you are already free and enlightened. If you are already enlightened in Moscow, Washington, or Lucknow, how can you lose anything anywhere?

This I speak about: Don’t try to gain anything but rather lose all the gains you have made so far. Leave behind all that you have read and heard about. What is left will reveal that it is your own Self, and when you know this you cannot lose it.

So any gain will be lost, and what you have not gained you will not lose. If your pocket is empty in Lucknow, it will also be empty in New York. But if you have something, you are going to lose it. When you are buying a packet of cigarettes, the money you spent is no more there. You have puffed it out. Always keep your pockets empty. With empty hands, everything will come. If you are already holding something, you have no capacity to receive something

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more. Empty your hand, always keep it empty. It is the empty mind who is the emperor of the universe. Empty mind and empty hand means having no thought, and a man with no thought is the king of the kingdom. You can try!

[Giggles] Empty your mind of everything and feel who you are. This is called peace, also enlightenment, also freedom. But don’t keep anything in your mind.

[Long silence]

“You are not the body” is often spoken here. A while ago I had an interview with a teacher of female spirituality. She spoke about embodiment, which means experiencing life as sacred, so there is liberation by being completely present in the body.

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: The woman that you speak about, a teacher, is just a woman not a man. There is no difference between a woman and ego.

[Laughter]

That’s news! [Roaring laughter]

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: Both are feminine genders. Miss Woman and Miss Ego are belonging to the same caste. It is the man who is going to be free. Don’t be discouraged, I will explain to you. [Laughter]

It is the male body who has created the female body for its own use. That is why I say: “It has to be a male.” In the Upanishads and other holy sutras it says,

”I am the Purusha. ” This means, ”I am male.” Nowhere it is written,” I am Istri, I am woman.” Purusha is within you. Not this sex body, whether appearing male or female. There is a Purusha in the heart of everyone. This Purusha is equal to the length of the thumb within your own Heart, forever burning as a flame. When you concentrate on that, you will see that you are this Purusha and not the gender male or female. I don’t know if she has gone to this extent, then she wouldn’t call herself a woman. Though everybody is Purusha, they don’t identify with That but identify with their body for their own interest, and they end up dead.

No one is told about this eternal Purusha which doesn’t come or go. No birth and no death. This is what I spoke: Neither do I come, nor do I go. It is that Purusha which speaks. If you merge into That and become Purusha itself then it speaks from where speech arises and not what the tongue can speak. The tongue can speak, but where does the strength come from which enables to speak?

 

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That comes from the fountain which is called the Purusha, aham Purusha. It is that Purusha which I refer to.

Years ago a master of Dzogchen became my first teacher. He teaches about self-liberation. That means that the primordial state of the individual is a spontaneously generated mandala where nothing is lacking. There is nothing to be rejected, nothing to be purified. This self-perfectedness means that the so-called objective is nothing else than manifestation of the energy of this primordial state of the individual, my Self. It is the same what I hear here from you. He also says, like you, that finding oneself in the state undisturbed by thought is the genuinely absolute truth or condition. But the Dzog-chenpo has no problem with thought itself as long as one is not attached to it and one may use the example of the mirror where all is just reflected in and the mirror is undisturbed.

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: I totally agree with this statement. For purification of the mind you need a mind that became impure. You can’t reflect yourself on a mirror with dust alighted on it. But if there is no mirror where will the dust alight?

When there is no mind, how will the dusts of thought will alight on the mind?

Many teachers of the world ask to purify the mind, but I say the mind does not exist. You don’t need to purify the mind when there is no mind. Actually, the mind is a function that you need for some object. Mind means the past. Mind is thought, and it must be from the past. When you look at mind in the present, in this instant, there is no mind. This no-mindness is called freedom. When you go to a movie theatre, there are pictures projected on a screen. Some are pictures of romance. Some are troubling, as of a person being attacked by robbers.

When the movie is over, neither is the screen wet from the river nor does it have any smell of the romance, nor holes from the shooting. The screen is immaculately clean.

It is the projection of your desires that fall on the mind, and you identify yourself with these pictures. But you have to identify with the screen, which was the same before the movie started and remains the same when the movie is over.

So this manifestation is a projection on the screen, and this projection is the mind. But if you understand “I am the screen, not the projection,” then projections will come and they will stop. You know I am the screen. I will not change at all. So you have to identify yourself: I am the immaculate, eternal, unchangeable screen itself. Then you can enjoy what is being played on it. But if you identify yourself with someone, then you will remember, and you will suffer with the suffering, you will enjoy with the enjoyments. But you will lose your own

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nature of being a screen. Therefore, everybody is clean. That is what I say: No practice! I apprise them of the fact: You are beyond anything and no dust has ever alighted. Therefore, I don’t prescribe any method to remove the dust, there’s no dust ever alighted. This is for those teachers on whose mind the dust has alighted—let them clean their dust. [Laughter]

And now I will give you my secret.

[Papaji looks Madhukar in the eyes. Both are silent for a long time.]

Thank you very much.

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: Thank you.

From my room I see

In the distance

A beautiful tree,

Even though it’s dead.

In the morning

Seventeen vultures are sitting

On its branches.

During the day

Not one is there.

What will happen in the evening?

I had 17 questions; I see this tree, the dead tree, is my body. On this body are 17 vultures sitting in the morning. They are not there in the day, now, when I look. Will they come back in the evening?

SRI H.W.L. POONJA: The vultures are always there when they smell a dead body, because they don’t eat living bodies. On a dead body, the vultures will sit and finish it away. Therefore, now, I gave you my secret, so that you will not die and no vultures will come near you. Om!

 

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