BOOK I
V
SELF AND INDIVIDUALITY
D: Does not death dissolve the individuality of a person, so that there can be no rebirth, just as the rivers discharged into the ocean lose their individualities?M: But when the waters evaporate and return as rain on
the hills, they once more flow in the form of rivers and fall into the ocean; so also the individualities during sleep lose their separateness and yet return as individuals according to their samskaras or past tendencies. Even so it is in death; and the individuality of the person with samskaras is not lost.
D: How can that be?
M: See how a tree whose branches have been cut, grows
again. So long as the roots of the tree remain unimpaired, the tree will continue to grow. Similarly, the samskaras which have merely sunk into the heart on death, but have not perished for that reason, occasion rebirth at the right time; and that is how jivas are reborn.
D: How could the innumerable jivas and the wide universe whose existence is correlative to that of the jivas, sprout up from such subtle samskaras sunk in the heart?
Page 27
M: Just as the big banyan tree sprouts from a tiny seed,
so do the jivas and the whole universe with name and form sprout up from the subtle samskaras.
D: How does individuality emanate from the Absolute Self, and how is its return made possible?
M: As a spark proceeds from fire, individuality emanates
from the Absolute Self. The spark is called the ego. In the case of the ajnani [?], the ego identifies itself with some object simultaneously with its rise. It cannot remain without such association with objects.
This association is due to ajnana [?], whose destruction is the objective of one's efforts. If this tendency to identify itself with objects is destroyed, the ego becomes pure and then it also merges into its source. The false identification of oneself with the body is dehatma-buddhi [?] or `I-am-the-body'-idea. This must go before good results can follow.
D: How am I to eradicate it?
M: You exist in sushupti [?] without being associated with
the body and the mind, but in the other two states you are associated with them. If you were one with the body, how could you exist without the body in sushupti? You can separate yourself from what is external to you but not from that which is one with you. Hence the ego cannot be one with the body. This must be realised in the waking state. The three states are studied in order to gain this knowledge.
Page 28
D: How can the ego which is confined to two of the states endeavour to realise That which comprises all the three states?
M: The ego in its purity is experienced in the intervals
between two states or between two thoughts. The ego is like the worm which leaves one hold only after it catches another. Its true nature is known when it is out of contact with objects or thoughts. You should realise this interval as the abiding, unchangeable Reality, your true Being, through the conviction gained by the study of the three states, jagrat, svapna and sushupti.
D: Can I not remain in sushupti as long as I like and also be in it at will, just as I am in the waking state? What is the jnani's experience of these three states?
M: Sushupti does exist in your waking state also. You
are in sushupti even now. That should be consciously entered into and reached in this very waking state. There is no real going in and coming out of it. To be aware of sushupti in the jagrat [?] state is jagrat-sushupti [?] and that is samadhi [?].
The ajnani cannot remain long in sushupti, because he is forced by his nature to emerge from it. His ego is not dead and it will rise again and again. But the jnani [?] crushes the ego at its source. It may seem to emerge at times in his case also as if impelled by prarabdha [?]. That is, in the case of the jnani also, for all outward purposes prarabdha would seem to sustain
or keep up the ego, as in the case of the ajnani; but there is this fundamental difference, that the ajnani's ego when it rises up (really it has subsided except in deep sleep) is quite ignorant of its source; in other words, the ajnani is not aware of his sushupti in his dream and waking states; in the case of the jnani, on the contrary, the rise or existence of the ego is only apparent, and he enjoys his unbroken, transcendental experience in spite of such apparent rise or existence of the ego, keeping his attention (lakshya [?]) always on the Source. This ego is harmless; it is merely like the skeleton of a burnt rope — though with a form, it is useless to tie up anything. By constantly keeping one's attention on the Source, the ego is dissolved in that Source like a salt-doll in the sea.
Page 29
D: What is the significance of the Crucifixion?
M: The body is the cross. Jesus, the son of man, is the
ego or `I-am-the-body'-idea. When the son of man is crucified on the cross, the ego perishes, and what survives is the Absolute Being. It is the resurrection of the glorious Self, of the Christ — the son of God.
D: But how is crucifixion justified? Is not killing a terrible crime?
M: Everyone is committing suicide. The eternal, blissful,
natural state has been smothered by this ignorant life. In this way the present life is due to the killing of the eternal, positive existence. Is it not really a case of suicide? So, why worry about killing etc.?
Page 30
D: Sri Ramakrishna says that nirvikalpa samadhi [?] cannot last longer than twenty-one days; if persisted in, the person dies. Is this a fact?
M: When the prarabdha is exhausted, the ego is
completely dissolved, without leaving any trace behind. This is the final liberation (nirvana [?]). Unless prarabdha is exhausted, the ego will rise up as it may appear to do in the case of jivanmuktas.