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

THE JOY OF ONENESS

Silence has a language all its own. It is a profound language. Far more powerful than words.

When you enter into this reality of silence, when for once you consciously understand it, you achieve that most precious thing: the joy of Oneness.

This secret language will begin to unfurl within your life, and your life will change: duties and routines, days and nights will give way to something mysterious. The Eros of truth. A mystery of presence and consciousness. Clarity, a life lived in joy.

If this clarity and this joy are not part of your daily life, you are either a slave to the past or a victim of the future. A victim of something that has not yet come to pass. No one has to be a slave or a victim. And why not? Because your true nature is freedom.

Love is one more aspect of your Being. Love cannot be fully explained. And yet our minds keep trying to define it. Definitions create problems. Definitions give limitations to something limitless, freedom has bondage imposed upon it, joy is impinged on by pain. On the basis of our upbringing, our social and cultural conditioning and our own individual experiences, we have various ways of understanding love. When we fall in love, we experience the lightness of Being.

But I am not speaking of this one particular variety of human love, attractive as it may be. No, the love I mean is the love that is our true nature. And our true nature reveals itself in the absence of mind. Pure consciousness is. It comes without effort. It is our nature.

 

Existence. In the simple joys of the Here and Now. In the balsam of the heart.

At the source of all Being.

 

Earlier I wrote to a goddess, a very beautiful woman: “Our love corresponds to a bizarre phenomenon in quantum physics: the superposition of states.”

A mysterious indeterminacy in quantum systems makes it possible for several states to coexist, as though a pure tone were being heard in several different pitches at the same time. This love is also shaped by yet another phenomenon corresponding to a feature of metaphysics known as the Heisenberg Uncertain-7

ty Principle. Since the state of human love is by nature indeterminate, it cannot be measured. The more precisely one tries to determine a state—for example the intensity of an attraction—the more imprecise and vague another state becomes—one’s degree of freedom, for example.

 

Peace is Here and Now. There is peace in mountain meadows, peace in trees, peace in the waters of a lake, peace in the clouds and even in the essence of animals, though animals devour one another.

Our hearts are peace, even though the unholy legacy of millions of years of human error sometimes fills them. Your heart is freedom, and if you open it ever so slightly to admit me, I will convince you that you yourself are this peace. But if you have brought along hammer and nails and are constantly nailing shut an imaginary doorway with your arguments and convictions in order to close yourself off, then I can not succeed in showing you, in proving to you, that you are peace. Your willingness is crucial. It is also worthwhile.

What is the reward I have to offer you? Your new life: clarity, simplicity, love, peace and contentment.

 

Presence. The One. All-seeing. Is in all eternity.

 

Even in the times of my greatest arrogance I knew that I wanted peace, wanted freedom, wanted to be happy. Everyone wants to be happy.

After young Ramana, my master’s guru, had remained silent for several years, after he had withdrawn into the deepest depths of his Self, he wrote the answer to the question “What is truth?” in the sand with a stick. The answer began with the words: “Since all people desire to be happy…”

Who wants to be happy? Pretending to be happy makes no sense. Do not deceive yourself. You might strut about, displaying a superficial nonchalance or pseudo-knowledge, and you might manage to live your life perfectly well in this way. You’ll have no trouble instructing, convincing, deceiving and cheating other people. If that’s what you want, it’s your business, go ahead! But when it is your

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own true Self you are encountering, you cannot deceive yourself. The most precious thing is at stake: you yourself!

God has done his part to create this glorious day. He has given us light and colors, and Nature in all its variety. Let us simply be. When we come to Satsang, the past should fall away from us completely, even if it is only for two hours to begin with. Give yourself this chance! Celebrate peace, celebrate your true Self!

I will fight for you like a lion, cavort about you like a gazelle and delight you like a court jester. Everything that can serve you shall be yours.

My heart’s silence has already touched you. In the heart, we are already at home. For all eternity. Here in this silence no action is needed.

You are armed to the teeth. Equipped with sophisticated weapons, ready for hand-to-hand combat. You have an entire arsenal at your disposal, and no end of buttons ready to be pushed, such as rage and anger. You are the High Court, prosecutor and defense united in a single person. You are the world’s most cunning lawyer armed with lies. You pay yourself well for these services and have done so for thousands of years.

Whether or not you like me is a matter of indifference to me. I will never stop loving you. I also find it astonishing that I am not in Rio de Janeiro, lying on the Copacabana surrounded by leggy playmates, that I am not sitting in the German parliament like my friend in Berlin, or representing some firm’s financial interests as a highly paid manager. This is because what happens happens, because this love has the greatest importance at this moment, because when you awaken, the entire world, the universe breathes a sigh of relief after ten thousand years of repression and self-flagellation.

Let me try an experiment: I will speak to you as one speaks to a good heart and a free head. I will be honest with you and will not resort to the old methods used by the spiritual slave-drivers. It will soon be clear whether you have the courage to accept my offer. I wish to make it clear that I have great respect for you. Something in your history, your everyday life, your priorities has brought us here—your heart, my heart, the Self.

Your search for freedom might, for some of you, have come about because you felt a tug of attraction, while for someone else it might look like selfishness or despair. It doesn’t matter. What is at stake here is quite simply awakening, peace and silence.

If you need rest because of tensions in your life, rest! If you need peace, I welcome you, may you be at peace! If you wish to awaken, awaken!

 

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Delving into the Eternal and Absolute in the Here and Now reveals the Self—

unlimited Consciousness.

 

Hey there, my name is Anders and I come from Göteborg. I met you around six years ago. It means a lot to me to be here with you. Ever since I was twenty I have felt strongly drawn to Ramana Maharshi. It’s like coming home, and I feel blessed by you. I am happy to be here, I love being here.

MADHUKAR: You feel blessed. When we receive grace, what is the result?

I feel my life has changed, in a way I would not have been able to imagine beforehand.

MADHUKAR: In what respect has it changed?

Peace has become very important to me. It comes and goes. Obstacles show up as well. When obstacles arrive, they interfere with the peace.

MADHUKAR: Whenever freedom reveals itself, obstacles become visible. It only looks as if they are arriving. Captivity was already present, but it was simply overlooked. And by the way, everything you see you are seeing through a so-called “model of the self”—but the model itself is invisible to you. It is nothing more than an elegant user interface. When freedom reveals itself in your life, you become aware of the captivity that was present. You can experience being free, being utterly independent of your circumstances. For the sake of accura-cy, and not least for the sake of your happiness, I must correct you. You say that peace comes and goes, that clarity appears and then vanishes again. This is a fundamental misunderstanding and leads to freedom’s continuing to come and go. It must become clear to you once and for all that peace is always here.

You turn to it, and you turn away from it again. As soon as you understand that you are not this body-mind program, you will not have to lift a finger to make peace come back to you. Why? Because it is already here. Anyone who is incapable of believing me—and that is perfectly acceptable, I can’t force people

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to believe the truth—will have to pursue enquiries on his own behalf: “What is reality? Who am I?” And in the end he will realize these things through self-enquiry. Or else he won’t.

 

Can you say something about surrender as a path?

MADHUKAR: I don’t talk about paths. I am following so many paths, both on the street and in the air—I don’t like talking about a path. There are paths through time and space. But there are no paths within the Self. A path is delay, a path is lack of knowledge, a path is deception! Telling others about a path is something that happens out of ignorance or even because of the cowardice of a teacher who is not truly capable of showing others who is.

I like that: the path as delay.

MADHUKAR: Put this insight to use!

 

What gave you the impulse to stop searching and find what you have found?

MADHUKAR: My absolute desire for freedom. The insight that everything other than love is self-deception. The truthfulness of my master and finally my turning away from all phenomena. Even the most attractive experience that spiritual human beings strive for: Enlightenment. It was the turning away from it and turning towards myself, to the one who is.

 

Even Jesus liked his sandals. Obviously I’m inclined to like Gucci loafers. And your Victoria’s Secret lingerie is fine as well. A black Porsche, the new iPod, the Champions League, skiing in the Tyrol as long as you enjoy it, the VfB Stuttgart soccer team if they happen to win against Bayern Munich some time.

The claim that Jesus never laughed is the biggest joke. Taking joy in life is something that does not stop when you awaken. It is a culmination. With or without gadgets. But certainly without taboos.

 

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I am who I am. It is the secret of the wise to know who they are. Moreover they enjoy the pleasures of life, everything that is given in form: enchanting nature, the cinema, the touch of water on your skin, the golden scent of the frangipani, the taste of crusty bread. Love, laughter, dancing. All these things, the sympho-ny of the universe.

Flexibility and hardness, a flute—giving, giving, giving—this is life!

 

Who is the master? Is that the basis of Being, the essence?

MADHUKAR: If it helps you, yes.

Sometimes you mention that the master is nearby...

MADHUKAR: Yes, the master is always here. For me this is not a mere “inkling”

but rather something that is crystal clear. Clarity is transparent, and for this reason the mind likes to overlook it and prefers to observe itself.

The master can observe thoughts, things, life. He can stand in the middle of life and rejoice at all things.

MADHUKAR: Of course, taking joy in life is a sure sign of mastery. Have you ever experienced a master who was not beaming with joy? Who was not filled with humor and love?

No.

MADHUKAR: When you approach a thing with severity, there is no room for mastery, all you find there is tension and struggle.

Joy can be a very quiet thing.

MADHUKAR: O yes.

 

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Is this also true of the Zen masters? One hears tell of very severe, serious masters.

MADHUKAR: What have you heard?

Actually the attribute “serious” isn’t right, what people talk about is their severity.

MADHUKAR: I know only three masters personally: Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, my first master, a teacher of the Tibetian-Buddhist Dzogchen within the tantric Vajrayana. He had a wonderful sense of humor and in those days enjoyed drinking wine with us. He is still alive, his mind is crystal clear.

Sri H.W.L Poonja, my master, who is also called the Lion of Lucknow, always radiated in powerful clarity. It’s because of him that Advaita has become so well known in the West. He was full of a loving warmth, very kind, and blessed with the most fantastic sense of humor. At the same time, though, he could sometimes react in unpredictable ways—ways that it was sometimes easy for Westerners to see as unacceptable or insolent or even as a disproof of his mastery.

He was also quiet a provocateur.

Sri Ramana Maharshi was his guru. The Saint of Arunachala. Silence itself.

Although he and I did not live at the same time, this doesn’t mean I never saw him. Once, three years ago, when I was climbing the mountain Arunachala as the evening sun was setting, there he was, sitting on one of the smaller cliffs, one leg bent, dressed only in a Langotee and leaning on a staff. Silence chis-eled in gold. We looked at one another. His gaze was the purest kindness—it was utterly overwhelming. Until I walked on, in this sweet silence, and continued up the path to the Skandashram.

The best part is that this silence is still here whenever I recall these images.

What a powerful presence.

There’s a legend about Sri Ramana Maharshi that he never spoke but just sat there in silence—the classic image of the enlightened man. There is no doubt that he is the Satguru. I had the chance to ask people about him and read a few things about his real life, since I am spending some time every year in Tiruvannamalai, where he lived. And so I heard many reports from his contemporaries, who painted a fuller picture of him. He had a good sense of humor, sometimes he would even poke fun at his visitors, and he was very idiosyncrat-ic—and of course quiet, very quiet. A silence that can still be felt and that serves everyone who makes the journey to this holy mountain that Ramana loved so

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much and at the foot of which his ashram lies. Bhagavan’ s presence can still be felt even now, as a great vitality.

This is most certainly not severity. Severity comes from dogmatism—Puri-tanism for example, or for instance Calvinism, which has had such a strong influence in Switzerland, Holland and the Skandinavian countries. Also in the US we find this kind of religious dogmatism which is the mother of two ugly sisters—suppression and hypocrisy. Severity usually has its origin in a discipli-nary or religious movement, it does not come from truth itself. This is my view.

Possibly you have your own view. I do not claim that my own experience is the only valid one.

Each one of you is Awakening, and so do not hesitate to be.

Sometimes it seems to me that people feel more strongly attracted to bondage than freedom. And that they are afraid of their own inner fire, afraid of life itself.

Whatever it is they have been conditioned to believe—it is not, in the end, truth. That which you are is untouched and pure. It is aflame.

 

According to your website, you share a blessed lineage with Sri Ramana Maharshi and Sri H.W.L. Poonja. What does this mean? What have these masters passed on to you?

MADHUKAR: Grace.

That’s all?

MADHUKAR: Is there more? For me it was more than enough, it is marvelous. I can take credit for doing nothing more than making use of my unconditional desire for freedom and the grace displayed by my master. If it helps you, you too may partake of this grace.

 

Sometimes we point to the insight that the universe comes into being and ceases to be in a single instant. Heidaneinomoalab`rau! With regard to the Big Bang—which by the way took place without a sound because of the almost perfect vacuum conditions in the silence of outer space—astronomers have

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been able to be quite specific in their measurements.There is increasing support for the theory that the universe, charged up by an anti-gravitational field, experienced an enormous burst of growth in the first trillionth of the second in which it came into existence—instantaneously, in other words—when it expanded from submicroscopic to astronomical in size.

 

What does Oneness feel like? I have already heard a good deal about Ramana Maharshi and Advaita. What sort of state is it when you are One with everything? Do you yourself no longer exist? Who am I then?

MADHUKAR: “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li.” The Song of S olomon presents us with an erotic oneness, in the form of a poem contained in the Old Testament that presumably can be traced back to the Sumerian gods of fertility Tammuz and Ish-tar. It says: “I am my beloved’s, my beloved is mine.” Sri Ramana Maharshi spoke of Advaita, absolute Oneness, but not about states. You must have read some bad publications or listened to people trumpeting half-truths. What we are talking about here is true Being and truth. The eternal that always is.

It is not about states. It is about you. After all, if there is eternity, if there is truth, you yourself must be eternity and truth. And you are, aren’t you?

Yes.

MADHUKAR: So we are talking about you! Ramana Maharshi and I both refer you to the Self. We issue a heartfelt invitation: Put an end to your halfheart-edness, this halfway existence, this sense of being neither living nor dead, neither happy nor unhappy. Neither fish nor flesh, as Christ put it.

Take a moment, the fraction of a moment, to find out who you are. We invite you to live in peace. With yourself and with everything. Advaita means literally: Not-Two, Not-Duality, in other words Oneness.

How exactly am I to understand Oneness?

MADHUKAR: It is not meant to be understood at all. The mind has no access to Oneness, since the mind is built around separation and dualities.

What sort of feeling is Oneness?

 

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MADHUKAR: “There is only the one Being,” says Parmenides, the ancient Greek father of European thought who lived in Elea in Southern Italy.

Oneness has nothing to do with feeling—feelings come and go within that which always is. But to inspire you, let me say: It is a completely awesome feeling! Or a pleasant one, a good one, a peaceful one, an authentic one. It is like feeling full after a good meal. Fullness and contentment are also excellent descriptions for this feeling.

 

(a child): Are you a human being just like us? Are you a saint? Are you a seer of the future?

MADHUKAR: I like the sound of “seer of the future.” That’s not even so far

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fetched, since Sri Ramana was also called Maharshi, which means “great seer.” To see what will happen in the future is good, but it is even better to see what is now! Why do we need to see the future? It is enough if you can see the Now, because then you will have no interest in the future, since everything is now.

So you are also a seer?

MADHUKAR: You have my permission to give me any name you choose. I am exactly like you, exactly the same.

Have you found out what you have to do?

MADHUKAR: I have found out who I am, this is true. And as a result of this, one also knows what one must do.

So you’re a clairvoyant after all.

MADHUKAR: There’s some truth to that. But I do not use my abilities to predict the numbers that will come up in the lottery or other things of that sort.

I think I understand now.

 

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MADHUKAR: Yes, it seems to me as well that you understand. Every person has a different idea of what a “saint” or a “holy man” is. The word “holy” is ety-mologically linked to the words “whole” and “hale,” it means to be complete, round, to be all the different aspects and forms of life. Mostly when people call someone holy, they are accepting and worshipping only certain characteristics of this holy man while rejecting others, and then usually his holiness turns out to be hypocritical. For this reason, I’m not so fond of the word “holy.”

My

true name is “Being”—and since my master didn’t call me Being but instead gave me a name, I am now called Madhukar. This means: “Beloved, sweet as honey.”

So I am holy too.

MADHUKAR: I am utterly convinced of it.

 

In Satsang we are again and again making reference to the Self, our natural Being—an effortless, unforced existence. In our tradition, this is known as Sahaja Samadhi, a Sanskrit term. We refer to the eternal, the everlasting, that which is now: That.

It can neither be explained nor described, and it cannot be experienced either. And yet we are That. Every one of us. It no doubt sounds absurd when I say that it cannot be experienced and that I am it nonetheless.

A body is here, a brain that is more or less active—body and mind in other words—along with this indescribable entity, this life force that science has to this day been unable to explain. Normally our consciousness is marked by the identification with body and mind, with feelings and thoughts. But we know that this body is not eternal. This body is ephemeral. It came, it is, and it will depart.

Thoughts too come and go. They are always attached to emotions that release a series of biochemical reactions in the body that are essential for life. Also feelings come and go, they are not eternal. And so they are not real.

Not long ago I experienced something like a proof of this during a fainting spell. We say: I fainted. But what is there at such a moment is precisely the That I am referring to. I cannot say it was an experience, because there was no experiencer. Now I can speak about it like a person who experienced something because this fainting spell apparently lies in the past. But for me it is not in the past, it is now. What always is is what others have described as heaven: bliss, miracle, light. There is no experiencer, no perception, there is only this

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Being. To be sure, it isn’t true that we have to faint to realize who we are. Many people faint and are unable to use the fact of having fainted to gain insight—

instead, once they wake up again, they immediately identify once more with their bodies and minds. Even in the state between being awake and fainting, most of them presumably feel fear. Fear because their body consciousness is slipping away. This fear then colors their experience. There are some people who have near-death or false-death experiences and report miraculous things.

But even without all these experiences it is and remains clear to me without a doubt who I am.

Self-enquiry is crucial for gaining insights. It is easy to practice self-enquiry

—just ask the question: “Who am I?” All it takes is awakening from this thinking dream, this waking dream and inquire: “Who am I who perceives thought, in whom thoughts occur, come and go? Who am I in whom feelings rise up and fade away?” In other words, we are turning away from the person we have imagined. I am now saying “person we have imagined,”

but this might not yet

make sense to you. But in any case, self-enquiry is the most effective way to bring about this understanding!

The other possibility is surrender. Surrender appears to be more difficult for Westerners. In my experience, surrender comes about of its own accord through true self-enquiry. Since it is your goal to be happy, I am recommending that you practice self-enquiry. Papaji speaks of the bird that flies to freedom with the help of two wings: self-enquiry and surrender. Our logo also shows this bird of freedom.

I can say that in my life everything other than love and happiness has pro-ven to be rubbish, nonsense, fantasies, a waste of time, self-deception and ultimately illusion. For you things might be different. And I respect this.

Longing for bliss is superfluous, you already are happiness. You already are That. But if you realize this, please don’t tell anyone, otherwise you will be invited to speak all over the world and will have to constantly keep traveling from one place to another. Unless that’s what you like.

 

Yesterday in a Zen garden in Kyoto, Japan I met a patina-green Buddha of great beauty. Seeing this life-sized statue makes you want to sit at its feet.

Peacefulness, sculpted in bronze by a skillful artist. Gently radiant consciousness. The blazing red of a maple tree.

 

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My master’s last words were: “The Buddha is within!” At this retreat here at Chiemsee I am now sitting before seventy-five Buddhas. But the one or the other of them is fighting with all his strength and experience to resist the work of the omnipotent artist.

 

Is there someone else there to perceive Self, or is that me?

MADHUKAR: You tell me. Is there someone else there who is perceiving?

Sometimes there is. But sometimes it’s more of an impression that the awareness simply is.

MADHUKAR: And now?

Now there is only awareness.

MADHUKAR: Now awareness is here and sometimes in the past there was awareness there that had impressions. Impressions come and go. Awareness always is. We know that not everything we call perception is true. We talk about ascertaining something, which means to determine that something is certain or true. Probably we do this out of uncertainty or of fear that what we perceive might not be true. The latest scientific findings indicate that there is no truth to our perception, to what we think, see or feel. All these things are mere objects of our perception, like waves in the ocean. Big, small, impressive, unimportant, scary, delightful, beautiful, nervous-making—the ocean itself is utterly untouched by them. The surface may be ruffled, but even it remains unscathed.

It is only the arrogance of ego that refuses to accept, that chatters on about true, untrue, false, correct, good, evil, bad etc.

Your true self is That in which language resounds and echoes, in which concepts are accepted and disappear, thoughts come and go, feelings appear and pass away: simple, pure, miraculous.

 

MADHUKAR: Who’s next?

 

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I’m not interested in asking questions.

MADHUKAR: That is very wise.

 

Is the world real? If it isn’t, how could I ever be happy?

MADHUKAR: “If I don’t look at the moon, it doesn’t exist”—this sarcastic remark made by Albert Einstein refers to the experimental observation of waves, in other words continuous, constant states that “collapse” only in the context of being measured. They are transformed into particles, which goes against the usual behavior of waves, which ordinarily just dissipate. They appear to be both at once, i.e. tendencies. It is as if these miniscule particles were able to choose their own state.

The mathematician John von Neumann, one of the founding fathers of quantum physics, even explains where this takes place: in the brain, when we are consciously observing. And so it is the observer who is creating the world. This isn’t actually anything new, Buddha already said the same thing. Does this explain the reality of the wise man whose world is always radiant with a rose-hued light regardless of any states that might be judged, as pure consciousness? And does this explain why he is conscious without feeling concern about the unreality of this radiance, this world, and why he nonetheless lives his life joyfully?

 

What is happiness?

MADHUKAR: The transpersonal Self is the sole everlasting reality, which is peace and silent joy.

 

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BREAD, SEX & DEATH

This silence, which frightens some of you here, which weighs on you or embar-rasses you, is the most precious thing there is. It is the essence of Being, the basis of life.

Recognizing silence doesn’t mean keeping quiet all the time and retiring to a monastery in Chiemgau or a cave in the Himalayas. The river of thoughts, your inner noise, the mental garbage will not cease there either. Silence means being utterly independent of thoughts and feelings, in a perfectly natural way.

I haven’t come here to give a lecture. That wouldn’t help you much in terms of your own awakening. Everything you receive from the outside, everything you learn, will leave you again. What you can discover here is what was always the case and will always be: your own true Self. You do not need to learn it, it is already here. I am not going to give a lecture, because all the philosophies and religions were unable to create lasting change in the world.

And so we have been called upon to encounter one another, to take part.

You can ask questions or you can describe to me your experiences with the essence of life. This interests me very much.

How can I recognize myself?

MADHUKAR: That is a good question. There’s just one small proble m. Whenever you look within, what you see, if you are not going about this in a very conscious way, is old concepts and ideas. You see only what you have collected through your experiences, what you have learned from your culture: your parents, your teachers, the mass media. You have been programmed like a robot and in this way limited. Your sensory perceptions animate you on the one hand and limit you on the other.

Everything you have ever experienced came to you through your organs of sense: eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin. True essence cannot be experienced by means of the senses or the mind. Nonetheless it is quite a simple matter for to recognize yourself: because you are here!

Your question was a good one. It would be even better to ask: “Who am I?”

For this “Who” will lead to you yourself. Please ask yourself this question. Then we can walk a few steps together. Do you understand the question?

All I’m lacking is the answer.

 

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MADHUKAR: Who is seeing that there is no answer? When you say: “I lack the answer,” there must be a witness who can see that you don’t have the answer.

Who is that?

What I am now able to perceive takes place through the senses I have at my disposal.

MADHUKAR: There must also be a far deeper dimension that is seeing this, a dimension you can perceive. And so there must also be a perceiving entity that is deeper than just the person with human limitations. I am now referring to consciousness, which sees what you have been speaking of. Who is that?

I can sense this, but I cannot express it.

MADHUKAR: What you are able to sense is here. Can we agree to this?

Yes.

MADHUKAR: Can we call it consciousness?

Yes.

MADHUKAR: Consciousness sees or senses. We have to choose words of this sort, because language operates by referring to the realm of the senses. It is always pointing to feeling, seeing or hearing. We cannot use language to describe something that lies beyond sensory perception. We have no other choice but to use words. Do you feel your body?

I perceive my body.

MADHUKAR: Good. Your body is here. It is being seen. Can you also see your thoughts?

Yes.

MADHUKAR: A thought came, is here and departs. The thought that was here before has now gone. The important thing for me is consciousness, which has more depth than your thoughts and feelings. Until now we have mainly identi-22

fied with them. We are brought up to assume the presence of a person, whom we call I. There are facts that seem to support this: birthdays, the words mine and yours, etc. For most people, then, there are persons, and this identification leads to problems. Otherwise everyone would be happy. But unfortunately this isn’t how things are.

It is particularly important for young people to reflect on this, because they generally assume that joy is something that will come to them later. But most of them do suspect that most adults are not happy at all but rather frustrated and disillusioned.

When I am perfectly silent and my I-perception fades away, a perception of silence remains that feels qualitatively different from the other one. Sometimes it is accompanied by a feeling like: Nothing is lacking.

MADHUKAR: I would call this abundance.

Yes, but then there’s someone else perceiving this.

MADHUKAR: Very good!

And a certain subtle ego belongs to the one perceiving this. Why is there a qualitative difference of this sort?

MADHUKAR: Because the one perceiving has not entirely disappeared, has not been completely dissolved in the perception itself, in this silence. Because there is a separation between subject and object. When silence has become absolute reality, you disappear. Essence is. Oneness. No duality between appearance and subject.

So then perception as such vanishes, as it were—it can no longer be perceived.

MADHUKAR: There is nothing but unity. It can happen that one dissolves and no longer has any perception of a body. But I don’t want to go into this mystery yet. It is something quite natural. Even in a state of unity body and perception function normally. It is just that there is absolute clarity, abundance and a Being free from all doubt.

 

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Can I compare this with the state of being in deep sleep, when one also doesn’t perceive anything?

MADHUKAR: There are three basic states: the waking state, the dream state and deep sleep. And there is a forth state as well: the daydream. Daydreaming can become an illness. Daydreams occur approximately ten million times a day.

So often you lose yourself in illusions, thoughts, the future, wishes and expectations, the past, joyful or oppressive memories. We lose ourselves in something that disturbed us and that we would have liked to have done differently, in other words in self-pity and self-reproaches. Generally we are dragging an entire sack full of disagreeable thoughts involving the past around with us. In my opinion, this is utterly unnecessary, since in the Now nothing at all is disagreeable. If you are interested in the Now—you can have it right here. If it doesn’t interest you, please tell me why not. What could be more precious than being happy? Some people spend years not feeling good enough, being envious, being jealous. Of course there are also joyful moments in between. But unfortunately we often create negative states. I claim that every second in which you do not feel contented is wasted.

Back to your question. For you the body appears to have dissolved in deep sleep, and mental activity has been reduced—which of course you are scarcely in a position to perceive. In the dream phase, on the other hand, creation starts up again. Has it ever happened to you that a dream you had was continued a few nights later?

Yes.

MADHUKAR: It’s interesting that our brain has the capability to create ordinary reality quite realistically in dreams. What you are now seeing could be dreamed looking exactly the same way. In addition, it is possible to experience dreams in which the regularity of time and space are shifted. And then phantasmagoria are possible both in dreams and in waking consciousness.

Everything, universe, multiverse—just a thought.

 

KNOW THYSELF was written on the gate to the temple of Apollo in Delphia.

Which Self is meant? Surely not the ego self. It is far more likely to be the transcendental Self. Neuroscientists in any case present a new status quo: they

 

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say that the “self” is merely a construction! And suddenly an entirely new image of the human being emerges.

 

It is dangerous to come to Satsang. By coming, you put yourself in mortal danger. I have to warn you. Anyone who wants to be able to go on dreaming his life as before should not come.

 

Now that I am here, I am feeling something remarkable, an indescribable lightness inside me. I see these stones and rocks and I feel my lightness.

MADHUKAR: Congratulations!

 

For me it is important to have a master on the outside.

MADHUKAR: Outside? Do you mean like having a teammate in the outfield?

A few years ago it was my great wish to have a master. This wish was fulfilled.

Fulfilled completely!

MADHUKAR: That is a great blessing. Most people today are too arrogant to make use of an opportunity to be with a master.

It really happens of its own accord. I didn’t do a thing to make it happen.

MADHUKAR: Because of your wish for truth and freedom, a master manifests in human form to speak to you. He confronts you with the Love that you are, or with your lies, depending.

That is the most valuable thing, since it’s usually not possible to recognize one’s own lies.

 

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MADHUKAR: When you are faced with the master, the lies become obvious. But a lie is only a phenomenon of the mind, not truth. And so it must always leave again.

 

I have a question about self-enquiry. What sort of method is this?

MADHUKAR: Self-enquiry is more direct and effective than any method. The word I use for it in German, Selbstergründung contains two words: “self” and

,

“ground.” Thus it is about you yourself and the primal ground. I would therefore suggest translating the Sanskrit term Atma Vichara as “plumbing the depths,”

because enquiry always involves a chronological process. After all, the goal does not lie in some indeterminate future. Plumbing the depths means “going down to the bottom.” In this way we invoke the metaphor of the ocean, the eternal element into which we can sink. But plumbing the depths is a lightning-swift action, swifter than light itself. (As in most translations of Advaitic texts Atma Vichara is translated as self-inquiry, I stick to this term in this book) But then I am not plumbing any depths, I am merely accepting what I have previously experienced.

MADHUKAR: Please tell us about your experience of self-enquiry!

When it goes really quickly, that means I haven’t been plumbing any depths at all but have only been remembering some earlier act of self-enquiry...

MADHUKAR: Try again now, and tell me what you are experiencing! When you are only remembering, realize that right away. Turn away from the remembering as fast as you can—or slowly, if you prefer. Turn toward yourself, the one in whom this remembering is taking place. Please begin. Now!

There is peace. It bothers me that I am intensely aware of my body and that it is not dissolving. I probably have some preconception of what it’s supposed to be like.

MADHUKAR: Do you wish to dissolve?

 

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In principle, no.

MADHUKAR: If your body dissolves, you will no longer need clothes …

You will

no longer be able to enjoy a glass of wine, or champagne either, and forget about sex.

… I won’t need jewelry either.

MADHUKAR: Do you really want your body to dissolve? Sooner or later it will dissolve, and your wish will be fulfilled. But the point of time when this occurs is not something you can control, it will happen at the appointed hour. Or to put it in the language of children: It will happen when God wants it to. In German, Brahms’s Lullaby ends with the line “Tomorrow morning, if God wills it, you will wake up again.” It always troubled me, as a child who took such boundless joy in life, when my grandmother would sing this song to me at bedtime. I could hardly wait to get up again the next day to go on playing, how could that depend on what God wanted?

There are various different views as to what awakening is, or—to use the more usual term—what enlightenment is. For example, some see it as a flash of lightning from the sky or as a light rising up within you or something transcendental manifesting itself…

I always heard that awakening was something accompanied by the most terrible pain...

MADHUKAR: That was birth. Who told you that?

Some people who...

MADHUKAR: ... who don’t have a clue. Awakening can involve apparitions, or overwhelming enlightenment states. I have never experienced this as pain, it’s more like an enormous orgasm. But these apparitions are not real, they are not absolute truth, they are simply manifestations having to do with the body, with your own energy system, that have gone beyond the usual level of intensity and reach into the supernatural. But they are still within the bounds of dimensions.

Awakening has to do with peace and non-identification. Not with your body and your ideas, your expectations and concepts. You can be conscious of your body during this process—but it can also disappear.

 

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I like the word peace much better than bliss. I have a better sense how to think about peace. Bliss for me is something divorced from reality, something always floating about half a meter above the ground.

MADHUKAR: Well, that’s an odd notion, isn’t it? This reminds me of a spiritual conference … No, it’s not a matter of having things levitate. Self-enquiry takes places firmly on the factual ground. I suspect you like to lie down for a bit and snooze a little. That’s what you then call self-enquiry. Then you think you’ve done your job for the day—the rest is up to Madhukar. Replace this method with the lightning-flash of self-enquiry!

How many times a day should one do this?

MADHUKAR: Once a day.

This seems to take quite a toll on my body. It takes me a full hour to recover afterward.

MADHUKAR: Where did you spend this hour?

Somewhere between waking and sleeping. I can’t manage to just squeeze in self-enquiry between other things.

MADHUKAR: I didn’t say to do it once and quickly. Do it once a day for twenty-four hours!

I can’t sit down and practice self-enquiry. I have to have complete silence if it is to work, even if you say it could just work ad hoc like that. That just doesn’t work for me.

MADHUKAR: What do you mean by: “If it is to work?” How does it go when it’s working?

When I have the time and sit down or lie down, then I can practice self-enquiry.

MADHUKAR: And so what do you do?

 

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Then I ask myself: Who is seeing this? Who is seeing the thoughts, my body, my feet? But I can’t do this when I’m baking bread or standing in line at the supermarket even if I have enough time.

MADHUKAR: Practicing self-enquiry while baking bread would be perfect. But it seems you’ve gotten accustomed to a certain form, to sitting or lying down in certain positions. For a certain time this might be useful, but in the end it leads to limitations. For this reason I don’t advise sticking to a form. Once, two years ago, I said to someone in Satsang that he should practice self-enquiry for five minutes before falling asleep at night and for five minutes after he woke up, and the reason for this was that I could see that a direct and lasting enquiry and surrender were impossible for him. Two months later my instructions were published in a magazine, and one year later in a book, and so people have made it into a doctrine about what self-enquiry should look like. You can no doubt imagine what in the distant future will be written in a Satsang Bible.

If people have long trunks in two thousand years from the excessive global use of cocaine and big green ears from overdoing it with Ecstasy in their youth, the Satsang Bible will say: “Fold you ears forward, put your trunk in your mouth, all the way down your throat until your pineal gland is dripping.” …

 

Is the bond between master and students going to affect me?

MADHUKAR: “Eternally conjoined by a mysterious telepathic bond.” This isn’t some naive notion of love, it’s the so-called quantum entanglement discovered by quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger. Two particles that have arisen at the same time in the same place experience the same phenomenon: If one particle shifts its spin axis, for example, then the other particle immediately changes as well at exactly the same instant. Does not this “spooky action at a distance”

(Einstein) also explain the guru-student relationship?

 

Is there reincarnation?

MADHUKAR: At night you can dream of another life and experience it as real.

When you are dreaming, you might have a toothache or find yourself in the

 

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midst of bloody strife on the battlefield and have your arm cut off. You feel the pain of this. You are afraid of dying. In your dream, this is all real, but when you wake up the next morning you know that it was only a dream. This is the same reality possessed by incarnations. When you realize who you are, you will lose your interest in them.

I read somewhere that Papaji was always saying: “If you are with me now, it is because you earned this in a previous life.”

MADHUKAR: That was really inspirational for the one who heard these words.

Use what you have read to realize who you are, but do not read it like a Saddu-cee. Use what is alive, speak openly and honestly and don’t take something Papaji once said to someone and turn it into a philosophy. That’s just how the Bible came about. Christ too had disciples, students to whom he spoke, and later this turned into a religion. Christ said one thing to Maria Magdalena and another to Peter, depending on the situation and the understanding of each person. He served each of them to help them understand that heaven is here and that he is already That.

Papaji could see his incarnations quite clearly. Wherever he was living and working. He knew why he had to come back to Earth again: for love of a woman.

In his last life, he was a sort of abbot in an ashram in Southern India. He fell in love with a young woman, a coconut gatherer with velvety skin. He desired her, but never acted on his desires because that would not have been suitable for the head of an ashram. For that reason he had to come again and marry this woman—fortunately for me! I am eternally grateful to him for falling in love with this woman, since otherwise I would never have met him.

When you have reached a sufficient level of insight, it will become clear to you that there is no reincarnation. What matters for the moment is whether you can see that Papaji is right here.

 

Do you believe in life after death, or is death the end of everything?

MADHUKAR: There is life before death. Awaken now, and you will realize that you are eternal, independent of body and mind. You are eternal life!

 

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How can you surrender if you can’t help constantly controlling yourself?

MADHUKAR: The one who is inclined to be controlling would be better advised to choose self-enquiry. Surrender is difficult for Westerners. What most of them think of as surrender is generally just a product of the mind. Nonetheless I will mention it because it is one possibility for achieving freedom directly. Surrender occurs either of its own accord, or as a result of self-enquiry: Because you realize that you are not the person you thought you were. Because you realize that you are not a slave, that you are free!

The one who is free will have no problem surrendering.

Is surrender the answer to the question “Who am I?” or is there no answer?

MADHUKAR: There is an answer: The answer is you!

So the answer is not an idea?

MADHUKAR: No not an idea, not a thought! Very good! The answer goes deeper than any thought. When a thought is there, there must also be a background for it to appear in front of. When we listen to music, notes, sounds, there must also be some sort of resonant body present for it to appear in.

Is it true that the mind can suddenly cease to exist and then no more thoughts will come and only emptiness remains? When this happens, what is left?

MADHUKAR: What is left is truth, which encompasses everything. In reality everything exists and does not exist. Modern science is shedding more and more light on who we are. Unfortunately people are still living according to concepts left over from the Middle Ages.

And yet we aren’t so far removed from the Middle Ages—not even by a second!

MADHUKAR: Not even by a second...

 

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I have a question about sexuality. A few weeks ago a friend passed on a rumor about you.

MADHUKAR: And? Did it leave a bad taste in your mouth?

A very bad one!

MADHUKAR: And was this because of your opinion of what you heard or your friend’s opinion?

My friend’s opinion.

MADHUKAR: So why would you repeat someone else’s opinion?

Because it made an impression on me. She said that...

MADHUKAR: Just a moment. I asked you—not your friend—whether the rumor left a bad taste in your mouth, and you said it did. Does this mean that you have adopted your friend’s opinion and made it your own?

Nonetheless I feel doubts arising in me.

MADHUKAR: If these doubts are so important and wish to be spoken aloud, go ahead!

This rumor claims that you had sex with one of your students in India.

MADHUKAR: Was it your friend?

No, it wasn’t her.

MADHUKAR: Then why is she talking about it?

She thought I should know because she knows how enthusiastic I am about coming to your Satsang and feel so inspired by what I experience here.

MADHUKAR: In your opinion should I not have sex?

 

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Not at all, you definitely should!

MADHUKAR: Definitely? Hm, that’s going a bit too far… What is sex in your opinion?

Physical closeness, experiencing pleasure and all the other things bound up with this.

MADHUKAR: That sounds very nice. For me too all this is an inseparable part of all that is and all I am. I don’t separate where the one stops and the other begins. Thank you for your explanation, it really sounds lovely! Closeness, pleasure, great! And I am permitted to partake of these things? Even definitely permitted? Great!

Of course. The only thing that’s troubling about it is that it’s a teacher/student relationship.

MADHUKAR: You cannot be talking about me, since I am not a teacher.

Are you not a master?

MADHUKAR: A master has no students. He does not make separations.

But isn’t it true that people come to you because they want to learn from you?

MADHUKAR: Why have you come to me?

Because I wish to find Oneness.

MADHUKAR: In that case, any sort of separation would be an obstacle! I don’t recommend separations. I have neither heard reports nor is it my personal experience that anyone has ever been harmed by physical contact with me. If this is nonetheless the case, I would ask that person to speak to me personally. To speak directly, not through rumors, not by saying bad things about our meeting.

The woman you have mentioned could also communicate with me personally if she in fact had reason to. But I don’t know this woman you are talking about. I don’t know if this friend of yours has problems with her own sexuality, perhaps motivated by her notion of morality? Or is this a problem for you yourself?

 

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The idea of abuse did make an impression on me. I myself have a history of abuse.

MADHUKAR: Were you forced to have sex?

Yes.

MADHUKAR: I have never in my life forced anyone to engage in physical contact with me. The blessed lineage I belong to takes great joy in life. It goes back to Krishna, who is reported to have been with 20,000 women! Also in Krishna’s case we do not talk about abuse since the women came to him of their own accord, drawn by his flute. It seems to me that you were looking for a way to talk about your own history of abuse.

I don’t want to tell this story here now because I think it isn’t necessary. I’m just noticing its aftereffects. I can feel its effect on me, it’s like a pang in my heart.

MADHUKAR: It’s great that we are able to clear that up! An idealized, moralistic idea of what a master should be doesn’t help anyone. It is a notion that apparently makes you feel secure because of your own past injury. Having clarity helps you. There are no compulsions and no separations. Now everything is as it should be.

I live freedom and I am not compelled to act in a certain way by anyone’s notions. I also do not let myself be abused by others and will not be seduced into living in a hypocritical way. Unfortunately we do hear of teachers and gurus with a handful or thousands of disciples who indulge in shady practices.

I don’t council anyone to live in any specific way. I leave that up to the ones who come to me. Some people love to live together with a partner, others prefer to live alone, and some live with several partners. No one will receive instructions from me, I don’t even give advice. What you call sex, what you have defined in such lovely terms, has been a source of great blessings in my life.

Wonderful! Divine! I’m happy to keep things as they are.

This pseudo-spiritual principle that love play or intimate contact should be undesirable or even forbidden, that sex is a sin, something impure that should preferably be left behind altogether or transcended has nothing to do with truth.

This notion comes from the rigid mechanisms of suppression we find in religions. I respect my master who at the age of sixty fathered a child with a thirty-year-old woman you would no doubt call his “student.” I equally venerate his

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guru, who as far as we know never had sex and even avoided all physical contact with others. Both are legitimate! There are no rules saying how it should be, it’s more that there is a wide spectrum of possibilities. At the moment I am not living in a fixed relationship. For one woman, being with me might be salu-tary and lovely, for another, all sorts of projections, preconceived ideas and old wounds might be in play. Or even desire, the wish to have, to possess me—all in vain.

But how can I distinguish between holiness and hypocrisy? I too see so many cases of hypocrisy.

MADHUKAR: In our particular case, no physical contact has occurred, and so I assume there was no hurt involved. Or might you have found it hurtful that I failed to touch you?

We hugged when we said goodbye after Satsang.

MADHUKAR: Yes, I remember this. Does this count as sex?

No.

MADHUKAR: Okay, I’m just asking for the sake of clarity.

It was a very kind moment of touching, very heartfelt, and I liked it very much. It didn’t harm me in any way.

MADHUKAR: I’m glad to hear it. Thank you for your elucidation.

I’m still waiting to hear how I am to distinguish between hypocrisy and holiness.

MADHUKAR: Trust your heart. It is better not to trust the confused minds of other people.

 

How important is silence in all of this activity? I know that you report that silence is the most powerful thing in the universe.

 

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MADHUKAR: Yes, that’s correct. Silence is your true Self. The ocean too is silence, although we—especially today—are impressed by the power of the waves. (The nearby surf can be heard) And nonetheless the ocean is silence.

How can I recognize silence?

MADHUKAR: By not worrying any longer. If you have a great deal of time—one million years, say—then you should choose the path of exercises, practicing, meditation. But who has a million years to spare? The mind, which is identified with the body, does not have so much time, and your body doesn’t either. Its lifespan is limited to one hundred years or sixty or less.

Surrender works better. Even the most powerful ocean surrenders: to the attraction of the moon, which it allows to influence it—an eternal coming and going, ebb and flow. The ocean remains untouched. A wave comes into being, feels powerful, splendid, and then collapses, endures, suffers and dissolves.

Devote yourself to self-enquiry when surrender does not occur of its own accord. The insight that you are filled with life by the divine Self is the most direct insight and does not require millions of years. Not even steps! You have been programmed to cast off your shackles one step at a time. But do not let yourself be deceived! If you find yourself in captivity and by a fortunate coincidence the door to freedom opens, are you going to spare the time for a victory lap? Are you going to drink another cup of coffee with your cellmates? Finish the game of chess or the card game you’d started? Not at all, you’ll head for freedom by the quickest possible route.

Filled with joy, you will shout compassionately to your chess partner: “Come with me, this is the way to freedom!” He however will respond: “I can’t, I’ve got an appointment with the prison therapist later today.”

 

I don’t perceive the silence …

MADHUKAR: Silence roars like a lion and only a fool can sleep when the lion roars.

 

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THE FORMLESS DIAMOND

How is the soul currently understood by science and Advaita?

MADHUKAR: Conservative neuroscientists have been trying for a long time to prove that the body and the mind are linked, in other words that everything we experience is connected to our brains. The concept of the immortal soul therefore no longer plays a role in today’s science and philosophy. Prestigious natural scientists, quantum physicists in particular, are finding more and more evidence that consciousness exists even beyond the whorls of the brain. Apparently it is its own autonomous phenomenon. An Advaitin experiences himself, in a mysterious and utterly banal way, as a transpersonal, transneurological reality, the oceanic eternal from which the individual rises and falls like a wave. The realization that one is both—the Absolute and the Individual—makes life so much easier. And there is no cause to fear that this insight will interfere with one’s success in the world, since one’s critical waking consciousness is naturally preserved.

 

This might sound unusual, but I have the sense that I am standing before the question: “self-enquiry or survival?”

MADHUKAR: Self-knowledge or death. Ignorance is death. Self-knowledge is eternal life. Everyone who attunes himself to the Self is blessed. Do not be afraid of systematically, lastingly realizing who you are. Nor should you allow yourself to be intimidated by the fears and programs of your past, or the notions held by the society at large. Be authentic! If you long for freedom, pursue it with all the means at your disposal. There is nothing more important than finding out who you are and being happy.

So I don’t have to worry about surviving?

MADHUKAR: Your survival is out of your hands. Why burden yourself with this?

Learn, study and work just as others do, as befits your inclinations and possibilities. It is advisable to live in a healthy way, and nevertheless you have no

 

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control over life and death. There is no reason to burden yourself by worrying about this.

Thank you for providing this clarity!

 

Is eating meat bad for me?

MADHUKAR: For millennia now there have been warning voices in many advanced cultures about how the vibrations of meat are inauspicious, even impure. The fear felt by the living being that was killed is said to be transmitted to the person who consumes its flesh. Aggression and poor health can be the result.

One thing is certain: It makes a lot of sense to be a vegetarian. Not just from the point of view of health, but also for ecological and political reasons. The global production of meat is not beneficial to public health, it costs billions of dollars and robs entire populations of the control over their food systems. And the mania for meat is destroying our most precious inheritance, Mother Nature, as well as contributing to the catastrophe of climate change.

Enormous areas of the rainforest around the Amazon are being irrevocably destroyed in order, for example, to plant soybeans, which simply ruins the soil.

Soybeans are then used to feed gigantic herds of cattle that then wind up as hamburgers on the plastic plates of the masses. Worldwide the need for crops to be fed to animals is approximately eight times as large as the amount of grain used for human consumption. For every quarter-pound hamburger made of this rainforest meat, 50 square meters of land are destroyed.

Laws established to protect nature are regularly subverted. How? By “grill-ing the contracts:” A predated document is placed in a box with a grill, and after a short time it looks like an authentic old document. The Dutch and, most recently, the Chinese are deeply involved in this shady business and work in cooperation with corrupt functionaries. Only one of many examples. The greed of Food Capital seems insatiable.

And can we even afford this in this age of climate change and world hunger?

We should not be allowing such things to happen. A vegetarian world could be a world without hunger.

Once upon a time people ate meat once a week, and today many people devour it three times a day. And it’s not making people any happier.

 

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As the saying goes: You are what you eat. The fact that the negative effects of this mass production of meat—mad cow disease, bird flu and scandals involving the sale of rotten meat—have not yet led the politicians in charge and the consumers themselves to change their position on the meat question is hard to understand.

Intelligent people do not eat anything that has eyes. Here in Vienna there are wonderful farmers markets and excellent vegetarian restaurants. Today is the day when you can make the change and start eating in a more healthful, conscious way.

 

Is it important for you to eat a vegetarian diet?

MADHUKAR: I eat an exclusively vegetarian diet. And my bodily form is very happy with this choice. The vegetables are happy too. Even on my very first trip to India in 1981, long before I met my master, who as a Brahman was vegetarian, all the tasty vegetarian dishes I found made my mouth water, while the idea of eating meat lost its appeal for me. Once I myself had hacked off a rooster’s head, it was all over. I changed my diet. Later, to be sure, I was with a Dzogchen master. He was Tibetan—and they love meat in Tibet. When you come from Transhimalaya, where there is only millet and on rare occasions meat because it’s almost impossible to grow vegetables there, this isn’t surprising. Sometimes in the Sangha we practiced a ritual together, the Gana-Puja.

This is an old tradition that comes from the Bön, the old religion of Tibet.

Various life forms are sacrificed: In the Tibetan-Buddhist reality there are not only human beings but also gods and Asuras, hungry spirits and so forth. After many mantras, food that has been donated is eaten with great awareness along with wine. Among other dishes there was also Tatar. By consuming all these dishes, the participants are symbolically sacrificing themselves to the gods and other beings. As part of this Sangha, I participated in the ritual, although eating the raw meat was quite a challenge for me as a vegetarian. If you eat meat, then you should know that you are responsible for the life forms you are eating. It would be best for you to awaken, then the animal you eat will also be blessed when you eat it.

To make things perfectly clear: I do not impose any ethical rules on those who come to me. Everyone can live as he wishes. These rules don’t have much to do with your awakening. Otherwise many vegetarians would have awakened.

 

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And this is unfortunately not the case. One of the greatest tyrants of the last century, an instigator of mass murder, was a staunch vegetarian and teetotaler.

His asceticism got him nowhere. This Austrian gentleman is well known even beyond the borders of Germany, where he became Chancellor in 1933.

 

My name is Marga. I come from Chur and would like to share something. Today at this retreat I have experienced for the first time what freedom means.

MADHUKAR: This is divine news. Please tell us more if you are able to speak about this.

Yes, It started yesterday evening.At the beginning I felt unfreedom.

Then a great

wave of longing came over me, the longing of a long search, and then suddenly this search reached an endpoint. This morning I waited to see if it would return, since I still felt a little distrustful.

MADHUKAR: You waited for the old wave to return again?

Unfreedom was my companion for a long time. But then I tried what you have been saying, and I realized all it took was the right approach. I am so happy that you exist and so grateful that you are here with us.Thank you so much. Now I can start something new.

MADHUKAR The new thing will come on its own. All new things come of their own accord. Whatever must come will come, and whatever must go will go.

This is so beautiful. Thank you.

MADHUKAR: Our job is simply to handle this diamond of insight with respect.

With dignity.

Two days ago I read the interview with you in “yoga aktuell” and I realized that I had always misunderstood something. You say that what is everlasting is iden-tical with the true Self.

MADHUKAR: Correct.

 

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I always separated the two.

MADHUKAR: Yes, you separated them.

And now that I have stopped separating, everything is different.

MADHUKAR: That’s exactly why you should never separate things. This wonderful heart is always here. But most people concentrate instead on what comes and goes within it, and this causes suffering.

It’s so easy.

MADHUKAR: Thinking is difficult, loving is easy.

I love you, Marga.

 

For years now I’ve noticed that people here in Satsang keep getting more beautiful.

MADHUKAR: I’ve noticed this as well, including in your case! It strikes me that with the retreats especially, the participants arrive looking swollen, worry-laden and wrinkled and leave at the end looking joyful and rejuvenated. Maybe we should be advertising with the slogan “Beauty through Satsang.”

I’ve felt this for years quite clearly in my body. In Satsang, when I make eye contact with you, and in my everyday life, when I attune myself strongly to Self, it makes all my cells vibrate. When I sit still and only silence is there, I call it meditation. Then I can feel these things most clearly. It is important for me and it also has to do with awakening that I do not identify with my body. I observe it and have the feeling that everything is becoming more ethereal.

MADHUKAR: It doesn’t have to be your body that is becoming ethereal—the main thing is that your perceptions have become more refined. As we know, matter is not nearly as dense as it appears to us. Our cells are nothing other than vibrations, every cell is an oscillation. These are atoms, subatomic particles, quarks, strings, the tiniest vibrating entities.

 

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It’s very cool: They vanish and are renewed according to the principle of chance, and then they become determinable again. The idea that the body is constant simply doesn’t work: There is constant motion, a coming and going.

I can see this quite clearly. When I have been occupying myself with worldly matters the oscillations—I’m going to call it that—are reduced. I don’t know a better way to describe it. Above all I feel it in my head. And so I can see how important it is to be attuned in this way—even during the day in normal situations.

MADHUKAR: Yes, in everyday life. Nonetheless I would advise that you not draw a line of separation between the worldly and the non-worldly. The world too takes place within the Self.

What effect does this change in perception have?

MADHUKAR: It is obvious that you have a more subtle perception of physical reality. The body is not an inert mass. It is possible that the cells that make up the body can gradually become more refined or change. I don’t speak of this specifically because it isn’t actually necessary to do so. Otherwise people might start trying to focus their attention on their cells with the idea that they must transform the cells within their bodies—yet another source of stress.

It happens of its own accord.

MADHUKAR: Yes. I can remember something that happened while I was spending time in the jungle in Southern India. One evening I was sitting beside the shore of the river Subramania and suddenly glimpsed a water snake in the river. I looked at it, it looked at me. Whether it was the setting sun reflected in the eye of this reptile or something esoteric—in any case, when our eyes met it struck me like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky.

My legs couldn’t hold me up, I stumbled and then sank down backwards into a seated position as every cell in my body exploded, turned into light and dissolved like golden molten wax. It was as if everything were melting. Followed by presence—an I that was like born anew. This does not, however, mean that you should now go to the zoo and seek out contact with snakes.

The body is a wonderful container, a temple that it is our duty to keep pure and in good condition. One thing is certain: Some day there will be nothing at all

 

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left of this temple. Just as all works built of stone collapse into ruins after a thousand years. The body too has only a certain limited existence.

Thank God.

MADHUKAR: Since you are living abundance, you say “Thank God.” Other people suffer and hope for their sufferings to come to an end.

 

Does it matter where we are?

MADHUKAR: In fact it does not. And yet—something worth noting occurs to me here. It’s partly humorous but also existential. There is a constant that holds the world together. The fine-structure constant alpha is the measure of the strength of the electromagnetic force that binds electrons to the magnetic core.

A number whose value equals almost precisely one one-hundred-thirty-seventh (1/137). If this number were larger, the repulsive forces in the nuclei of smaller atoms would be so large that there could no longer be any nuclear fusion. Yikes—it would never have been possible for life to arise. If the alpha value were less than 1/137, the density of solid matter would decrease.

Molecules would break apart at lower temperatures and even so it wouldn’t matter where they happened to land because soon there would be nothing left at all.

 

How did everything come into being?

MADHUKAR: Scientists have strong evidence of the first moment: The initial powerful explosion of growth by the 13.7 billion-year-old universe in the billionth fraction of a second. This, correlated with the statement by H.W.L. Poonja’s and my own knowledge, speak for an instantaneous coming into being of the universe. As well as its ceasing to be. Compare it to a spider that spins its thread and then takes it back into its body again.

Everything is. Nothing is. Nothing was. Nothing will ever be.

Cheers! Enjoy life.

 

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I’ve been a victim of my wife since …

MADHUKAR: …since thousands of years people have been coming to their masters and telling this same story: “I am a victim of …,” and it is only polite-ness that keeps the wise man from bursting into laughter at these words.

 

When I inquire into who I am, I can’t be looking at myself. Through the process of enquiry I can see my mind. But can I also realize that I am not my mind?

MADHUKAR: When you look, you see your mind. You inquire and realize that you are not this mind. What else is left? At the moment when you realize: I am not my mind, I am not the thoughts that come and go, I am not the feelings pertaining to my mental activity, to my thoughts—what is left?

The background.

MADHUKAR: The basis of existence. Pure, immaculate Self.

But how can one see that?

MADHUKAR: You cannot see it, you are That!

Truly?

MADHUKAR: You are That

. On the basis of an imagined separation you are searching for it. You can either resort to surrender or—most directly—self-enquiry. This enquiry consists in questioning each manifestation and realization: This is not the highest truth but merely something that is appearing temporarily.

This is how you unmask the false self. What remains behind is still a self, the true Self, Being itself! Then you will no longer need to search, for you will know: I am That!

Yes. But my body is still here doing the talking … Doesn’t the body disappear?

 

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MADHUKAR: No, why should it disappear? The body will disappear when its time has come. So enjoy!

 

Is it true that close contact with a guru, even friendship, is more of an obstacle for the seeker?

MADHUKAR:

True friendship isn’t

Close contact is definitely not an obstacle.

even, because a friendship is the same as a “peaceship.” A false camaraderie, on the other hand, can be a hindrance.

I’ve heard that it’s more difficult for a seeker when he has a personal relationship to his master because more consciousness is demanded of him.

MADHUKAR: If we are going to speak of a “relationship,” let’s speak of the relationship between one self and another, not between persons. What you are bringing up might be the reason why I like to speak formally to my students (and use the formal form of address when I’m speaking German with them).

A formal form of address implies a dignified, respectful attitude toward the Self.

This is of more help to people, particularly as I have very close and friendly contact with many people, in a very “un-guru-like” way.

 

If I consistently keep asking the question “Who am I?” and then manage to access a state of—ideally—the highest Self … and if in this state I lose my personal identity because the project of self-enquiry was successfully conclud-ed: Who will then be left behind to experience the resulting happiness?

MADHUKAR: A very good question! Intelligent reasoning, excellent! To start with, the highest Self is not a state. When you awaken, there will be no one left.

This is correct. You will simply realize that you are this happiness! And you will recognize that you always were this happiness. Always! It’s just that you’d forgotten about it, you were just able to remember certain moments when you were happy. As a child, when you were playing in the woods. Or watching a sunset at the sea. Isolated moments of feeling free, relaxed and blissful. You remember them and realize that the happiness was always there. It was cov-45

ered up by ostensibly important things happening in your life, work, worries, striving and so much else. Your life will now continue on even after your awakening. It’s just that now you will be able to enjoy it. I claim that you will enjoy it a thousand times more. The challenges of life will not really burden you. You are that which is free and which is always: peace.

Strength arises through you. Everything occurs of its own accord. All effort is gone. I am That. There’s no need to give That a designation like bliss or awakening.

It might be that powerful emotions will arise within you, joy or a feeling of being moved, tears or laughter. These come about through your entering into the great silence, this abundance that is always there.

It is incomprehensible why the chance to recognize the Self is not sought after more often. After all, it will not make the joys of life disappear—only the one who suffers will disappear. Life conditions that resemble suffering might still continue to exist, and we have a certain notion of what is good and bad, prosperous and impoverished. We judge. If a flood washes away your house, under the right circumstances this can come as a relief to you, but this doesn’t mean you wish for something like that to happen … In any case, the one who is always suffering is conceited. Striving for happiness is superfluous. Happiness already is, and you are That. Happiness and pain come and go. In reality none of it ever touches you. A person has wishes and expectations. The person hopes and has his hopes confirmed or is disappointed. A person is vulnerable.

The one you really are is always free.

Thank you!

MADHUKAR: You’re very welcome!—What do you have to lose? Nothing at all!

Inquire to see who is. If peace is to your fancy, if it does you good when it is present, then spend time here or else go—however we might choose to call this—deeper. And if not, that’s fine too.

You are older than I am, a seasoned man, you have experienced and achieved a great deal in your life. Judge for yourself whether this truly has made you contented and happy. You can certainly be proud of what you have achieved: security, prosperity so that you have enough for yourself and your family. But are you truly happy, do you truly know who you are? Nothing is more valuable than this peace.

I am interested in all sorts of things and enjoy them. I’ve traveled a lot, I’ve studied, observed, worked and reflected. There were many good things in all of

 

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this. But nothing revealed more abundance to me than realizing who I am. This peace is the best thing of all.

I do not let myself be deceived by the shapes in which things appear. I have seen the whole world, met stars from the media and sports, millionaires, very successful people, politicians of various nationalities, clochards whose lodg-ings I shared beneath their bridges, along with beggars, yogis, teachers and gurus. The little man on the street and the woman next-door. I have shared life with all of them and looked to see if they are happy. I did not witness so much happiness. I saw much weariness, fear and deception, superficiality, effort, pain and escapism.

Of course I also see happiness and kindness. Spontaneity and joy. Heart, love, solidarity, all these wonderful things that make life more worth living. And yet it is all ephemeral, always ephemeral. Because in the end it is true that everything what came will go again. That’s why it is crucial to ask the question: “Who is real? Who is? Who am I?”

Although you find yourself in the middle of your bustling world, you have nonetheless always asked: “What do I really want?” This is why you have come here. Welcome!

 

When I say “yes” to life, when I surrender, I experience great freedom.

MADHUKAR: Do you constantly surrender to life, do you constantly say yes to it?

There are surely moments when I cannot manage this. But for me this isn’t just a concept, it goes deeper.

MADHUKAR: I believe what you say.

I spent long enough living with concepts.

MADHUKAR: Hallelujah! The voice of authenticity.

Do you think that life will keep going on if I say “no” to it?

 

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MADHUKAR: This has nothing to do with my opinion. Life goes on. Is that not also your experience?

There are brief moments when I think: I absolutely have to swim. At such moments the current of life is carrying me along. I keep wearing myself out unnecessarily.

MADHUKAR: You can swim, and this needn’t wear you out. Swimming can be fun. It strengthens your heart and muscles. That’s a good thing.

I wouldn’t find it so bad to drown in the river of life.

MADHUKAR: Go ahead, what’s stopping you? Open the portholes and sink!

Lose yourself entirely in the Here and Now!

Wow! I am becoming ever more conscious that I am alive. Otherwise I would have to ask: Who is experiencing life? Then I’m back to being an observer again, to separation. I’ve spent enough time living in a state of separation.

MADHUKAR: Hallelujah! What’s stopping you from letting go of even this observation and simply being?

It gets in my way that I am thinking about surrender.

MADHUKAR: That’s why I said to stop.

There are all these little temptations I sometimes succumb to, for example yesterday when I started asking a question that was purely cognitive and then fortunately noticed in time.

MADHUKAR: I can see your seriousness, not in the sense of being serious, but rather your honesty. If you now do not think about surrender and also stop paying any attention to all your other thoughts, then …

There is a sense of emptiness there that at the same time is infinitely full, an uninterruptedly overflowing gift!

MADHUKAR: Yes, this gives rise to a tremendous gratitude.

 

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And without my making an effort. The word grace came up recently. For me, the word “grace” makes sense. I am simply receiving a gift and feel loved, not because I have made an effort or have earned it.

MADHUKAR: Satsang is gratitude, Satsang is grace.

I am grateful that you keep drawing me back to the ground of Being.

MADHUKAR: I have already seen too many people hiding behind an imagined surrender because this doesn’t necessarily have any consequences.

That can be a form of escapism.

MADHUKAR: Absolutely! It can be escapism, and that would be a shame. Self-enquiry also involves surrender. As we have seen in your case, this enquiry brings gratitude and grace.

It isn’t a head-knowledge, it is a deeper sort of knowledge that I am feeling grateful for.

MADHUKAR: Then the form of this knowledge won’t pose any problems, since you are one with the Self, with God, with the guru. Everything is one. Nonetheless a gratitude towards one’s master manifests itself, as was also the case with me. Gratitude to existence and a constant awakening. The confusion that used to be called life has come to an end.

If this approach, this self-enquiry, is a final obstacle, then toss it into the fire as well! Then you will truly be able to say: “There’s nothing for me to do!”

whereas before this statement would make no sense. It’s not about the things we have to do, which we often like to describe as “everyday stress,” but rather it’s a matter of letting go of this constant false activity. When that has happened, you will be justified in saying: “Everything is. Everything occurs, everything comes, everything goes.”

Otherwise it is just an empty phrase.

MADHUKAR: Generally this statement has devolved to an empty phrase. We are called on to safeguard this formless diamond of insight and to respect it.

 

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You don’t pack a diamond in plastic but rather in delicate materials: in a pure body, a clear mind and noble stirrings of feeling.

A while ago I went outside and sat down beside the brook. Suddenly I was no longer there, there was just the brook and its sounds. Then there was a feeling inside me that I am merely an empty container.

MADHUKAR: The container is independent of its contents. The container does not say: “Oh no, not vinegar again! I don’t want vinegar, I want wine.” The container doesn’t say anything. It is simply a container.

 

What happens when the master and the student look into each other’s eyes?

MADHUKAR: Student vanishes, master vanishes—indescribable happiness! It is immeasurable good fortune when you meet a master who will not betray you.

When you look closely, you will see that the master is not only sitting before you but is seeing with your eyes. It is quite extraordinary for someone to want to be free and to have a pure heart—as you do.

 

On the back of your first book it says that you had your first experience of enlightenment in the 1980s. Could you describe it?

MADHUKAR: My first experience of enlightenment was given to me at the age of two, in the year 1959. At the time, my childish hands were juggling a ball of lightning. The jacket copy of my first book has often been misinterpreted. The text points out an experience of enlightenment, the awakening of Kundalini, in order to explain that even this gorgeous manifestation of so-called enlightenment is not the final truth. Awakening reveals the true Self. Even yogis have been seeking enlightenment for thousands of years. Nowadays many people strive to experience enlightenment without knowing that it is not the final truth.

Was there a catalyst or did it just happen on its own?

 

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MADHUKAR: That depends whether you accept the continuity of time. The basis lay already in my last life, in which I meditated with this goal. In this life it appeared out of nowhere, out of the Self, without my practicing for it. I may have reported on one or the other occasion on these various powerful manifestations, but I don’t like to speak about them, because even they themselves are not reality, they merely correspond to the ideas of the mind, even if they arise from the most various levels of the universe. These are perceptions on levels that are far removed from our normal consciousness. They are enormously powerful energies in which past, future and present flow together. But all of this is not final truth, these are merely phenomena that appear within body and mind.

Even these wonderful manifestations have a background: Absolute Being, the Self, the Heart. For this reason people in the West should be more discouraged than encouraged to pursue experiences of this sort with the help of all sorts of practices. It is more probably that they will wind up in the madhouse than that they will partake of something magnificent. Therefore I do not recommend such practices. After all, who is talented enough to handle energies of this magnitude? They are so strong that no one can control them.

I refer you to the purity of your heart. I refer you to the Self, to absolute truth.

For example, there were several among the yogis who managed to remain in Samadhi for fifty years, then returned and still did not know who they were.

Meditation techniques and yoga are good for the health of your body and can also facilitate mental relaxation, but do not occupy yourself with them for the purpose of achieving enlightenment. Enlightenment and awakening are different, at least as we understand them today. For Ramana it was all one and the same thing. For him there was only this Self; and for him there is only this Self, for he is always here.

 

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