19-10-45 Morning
A barrister from Bombay asked Bhagavan, "I have readthe works of Bhagavan and others and, though I can understand them intellectually, I have not been able to realise anything in experience. I have tried Bhagavan's method for about six years and yet I have not made any progress. When I meditate, other thoughts come. For people like me, living in cities and doing our work and coming here only occasionally, what sadhana [?]
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would Bhagavan advise so that we may succeed better than I have so far been able to do?"
Bhagavan: Your real nature is always there, your
meditation, etc., come only temporarily. Reality being your Self, there is nothing for you to realise. All that is required is that you should give up regarding the unreal as real, which is what all are doing. The object of all meditation, dhyana [?] or japa [?] is only that, to give up all thoughts regarding the not-self, to give up many thoughts and to keep to the one thought.
As for sadhana [?], there are many methods. You may do
vichara [?], asking yourself `Who am I??' or, if that does not appeal to you, you may do dhyana [?] `I am Brahman' or otherwise, or you may concentrate on a mantra [?] or name in japa [?]. The object is to make the mind one-pointed, to concentrate it on one thought and thus exclude our many thoughts, and if we do this, eventually even the one thought will go and the mind will get extinguished in its source.
Visitor: In actual practice I find I am not able to succeed
in my efforts. Unless Bhagavan's grace descends on me I cannot succeed.
Bhagavan: Guru's grace is always there. You imagine it
is something, somewhere high up in the sky, far away, and has to descend. It is really inside you, in your heart, and the moment (by any of the methods) you effect subsidence or merger of the mind into its source, the grace rushes forth, spouting as from a spring, from within you.
Another visitor asked, "What is the reality of this world?"
Bhagavan: If you know your reality first, you will be
able to know the reality of the world. It is a strange thing that most people do not care to know about their own reality, but are very anxious to know about the reality of the world.
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You realise your own Self first and then see if the world exists independently of you and is able to come and assert before you its reality or existence.
Another visitor asked, "Why is there so much pain even
for the innocent, such as children for instance? How is it to be explained? With reference to previous births or otherwise?"
Bhagavan: As about the world, if you know your own
reality, these questions won't arise. All these differences, the pains and miseries of the innocent, as you say, do they exist independently of you? It is you that see these things and ask about them. If by the enquiry `Who am I'? you understand the seer, all problems about the seen will be completely solved.
Dr. Syed asked, "If a person prays for a spiritual good for
say two years and yet is not answered, what should he do?"
Bhagavan: It may be it is for his good that the prayer is
not granted.
Afternoon
Bhagavan related the following: "When my uncle Nelliappa
Aiyar came to see me I was in the Mango tope [?] (grove) near Gurumoortham. The direct and shortest route to that place from the Railway station lay through a place where a Swami (U?UWj?fN??) was living. My uncle, meeting that Swami, and in his anxiety (because I had come away directly from my schoolboy life and so could hardly know anything about religion or spiritual truths), enquired of the above Swami whether I really knew anything in the path on which I had entered. The Swami told my uncle that I knew nothing, but was sitting with eyes closed in a firm and obstinate manner, doing some sort of hatha yoga [?] . So my uncle, who had a notion that none could know anything of value in spiritual life without reading Vedanta sastras, had a very poor opinion of me and felt only pity for me. Later, when I was in Virupakshi Cave, one day I was explaining the fourth stanza in Dakshinamurti Stotra to a young man who used
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to come to me frequently and who had requested me to explain the Stotra. In those days I was still generally silent and people thought I was observing mauna. My uncle suddenly appeared on the scene and I was caught in the act of explaining the Stotra. I was taken aback and for a moment hesitated whether I should continue the talk or observe mauna. But, seeing my uncle had already learnt that I did not mind talking, I continued the discourse. This convinced my uncle that I knew a great deal which he thought I could not have known." Bhagavan added, "The Swami who informed my uncle first that I knew nothing had also to change his opinion. This is how it happened. One day, returning from my pradakshina [?] round the hill, I entered the Easanya Mutt and there I found this Swami. He showed the Vivekachudamani and asked me about some stanza there. When I explained it, quoting other portions from the same book and also other books, he completely changed his estimate of me."
I may also record here, since it does not seem to have
been recorded so far, that Bhagavan told us that when his uncle came and had to send a written message to Bhagavan before he could get admittance, the poor gentleman had no ink or pen and wrote his message on a piece of paper with some twig for pen and the juice of prickly-pear fruit for ink.