Talk 341.
Mrs Jennings: Sri Bhagavan says that the state of Realisation is freedom from the tyranny of thoughts. Have not the thoughts got a place in the scheme of things - maybe on a lower plane?M.: The thoughts arise from the `I-thought' which in its turn arises from the Self. Therefore the Self manifests as `I' and other thoughts. What does it matter if there are thoughts or no thoughts?
D.: Are good thoughts helpful for Realisation? Are they not authentic via media, a lower rung of the ladder, to Realisation?
M.: Yes - this way. They keep off bad thoughts. They must themselves disappear before the state of Realisation.
D.: But are not creative thoughts an aspect of Realisation and therefore helpful?
M.: Helpful only in the way said before. They must all disappear in the Self. Thoughts, good or bad, take you farther and not nearer, because the Self is more intimate than thoughts. You are Self, whereas the thoughts are alien to the Self.
D.: So the Self finally absorbs its own creation which had helped its Realisation. Whereas civilisation wrongly worships and so separates and `short-circuits' its own creations which had helped its advance.
M.: Are you not distinct from thoughts? Do you not exist without them? But can the thoughts exist without you?
D.: Is civilisation generally, slowly but surely, advancing in the right direction towards this Self-Realisation?
M.: Civilisation is in the order of things. It will finally resolve itself - as all others - in the Realisation of the Self.
D.: Is a fine type of primitive man nearer to Realisation than a civilised man governed by intellect and thought?
M.: A realised man may look a savage, but a savage is not a realised man.
D.: Is it right to think that all that happens to us are God's ordainment , and therefore only good?
M.: Of course it is. Yet all others and God are not apart from the Self.
How can thoughts of them arise when you remain as the Self?
Page 321
D.: Is `surrender' accepting all physical annoyances such as ants , mosquitoes, snakes, etc., and, in accepting, willing or ceasing to be really hurt by them?
M.: Whatever it is, is it apart from you, the seer or the thinker?
A Parsi lady from the audience intervened: If they are not apart, do we not feel the sting of the ants?
M.: Whom does the ant sting? It is the body. You are not the body.
So long as you identify yourself with the body, you see the ants, plants, etc. If you remain as the Self, there are not others apart from the Self.
D.: The body feels the pain of the sting.
M.: If the body feels it, let it ask. Let the body take care of itself. How does it matter to you? The American lady again: Does complete surrender mean that all noise and disturbance in our environment, even during meditation, must be accepted? Or should we seek a cave in a mountain for solitude? Did not Bhagavan do this?
M.: There is no going or returning. The Self is said to be unaffected by the elements, infinite, eternal. It cannot move. There is no place to move in for the Self.
D.: But, in the process of finding the Self, is this seeking external help spiritually legitimate?
M.: The error lies in the identification of the Self with the body.
If Bhagavan is the body you may ask that body. But understand him whom you address as Bhagavan. He is not the body. He is the Self. Then she referred to an article in Harijan where it is said that everything is God and nothing belongs to the individual, and so on.
M.: Everything, the individual, God and all are only the Self.
Then she read some lines from Shelley and asked if Shelley was not a realised soul.
Within a cavern of man's trackless spirit Is throned an Image so intensely fair That the adventurous thoughts that wander near it
Page 322
Worship, and as they kneel, tremble and fear The splendour of its presence, and the light Penetrates their dreamlike frame Till they become charged with the strength of flame.
M.: Yes. The lines are excellent. He must have realised what he wrote.
The lady then thanked Sri Bhagavan and retired.