I am that - Awareness of being is bliss

[Shashikanth Hosur]

                Awareness of Being is Bliss

Questioner: By profession I am a physian.  I began with surgery, continued with
 psychiatry and also wrote some books on mental health and healing by faith.  I
 came to you to learn the laws of spiritual heath.

Maharaj: When you are trying to cure a patient, what exactly are you trying to
 cure?What is cure? when can you say that a man is cured?

Q: I seek to cure the body as well as improve the link between the body and
 mind.  i also seek to set right the mind.

M: Did you investigate the connection between the mind and the body?At what
 point are thay connected?

Q: Between the body and the indwelling consciousness lies the mind.

M: Is not the body made of food? and can there be a mind without food?

Q: The body is built and maintained by food.  Without food the mind usually goes
 weak.  But the mind is not mere food. There is a transforming factor which
 creates a mind in the body.  What is the transforming factor?

M: Just like the wood produces fire which is not wood, so does the body produces
 the mind which is not the body. But to whom does the mind appear? Who is the
 perceiver of the thoughts and feelings which you call the mind? There is wood,
 there is fire and
there is enjoyer of the fire.  Who enjoys the mind? Is the
enjoyer also a result of food, or is it independent?

Q: The perceiver is independent.

M: How do you know? Speak from your own experience. You are the body or the
 mind. You say so. How do you know?

Q: I really do not know.  I guess so.

M: Truth is permanent.  The real is chageless. What changes is not real, what is
 real does not change.  Now, what is it in you that does not change? As long as
 there is food, there is body and mind.  When the food is stopped, the body dies
 and the mind di
ssolves. But does the observer perish?

Q: I guess it does not. But I have no proof.

M: You yourself are the proof. You have not, nor can you have any other proof.
 You yourself, you know yourself, you love yourself.  Whatever the mind does, it
 does for the love of its own self.  The very nature of the self is love.  It is
loved, loving and lovable.  It is the self that makes the body and the mind so
 interesting, so very dear. the very attention given to them comes from the
 self.

Q: If the self is not the body nor the mind, can it exist without the body and
 the mind?

M: Yes, it can.  It is a matter of actual experience that the self has being
 independent of the mind and body.  It is being--awareness--bliss.  Awareness of
 being is bliss.

Q: It may be a matter of actual experience to you, but it is not y case.  How
 can I come to the same experience?  What practices to follow, what exercises to
 take up?

M:  To know that you are neither body or mind, watch yourself steadily and live
 unaffected by your body nor mind, completely aloof, as if you were dead.  It
 means you have no vested interests, either in the body or in the mind.

Q: Dangerous!

M:  I am not asking you to commit suicide.  Nor can you. You can only kill the
 body, you cannot stop the mental process, nor can you put an end to the person
 you think you are. Just remain unaffected.  This complete aloofness, unconcern
 with mind and bosy
 is the best proof that at the core of your being you are neither mind nor body.
  What happens to the body and the mind may not be within your power to change,
 but you can always put an end to your imagining yourself to be body and mind.
 Whatever happens
,  remind yourself that only your body and mind are affected, not yourself.  The
 more earnest you are at remembering what needs to be remmembered, the sooner
 will you be aware of yourself as you are, for memory will become experience.
 Earnestness reveals
 being.  What is imagined and willed becomes actuality--here lies the danger as
 well as the way out.
  Tell me, what steps have you taken to separate your real self, that in you
 which is changeless, from your body and mind?

Q: I am a medical man, I have studied a lot, I imposed on myself a strict
discipline in the way of exercises and periodical fasts and i am vegetarian.

M: But in depth of your heart what is it that you want?

Q:  I want to find reality.

M: What price are you willing to pay for reality? Any price?

Q: While in theory I am ready to pay any price, in actual life again and again
I am being prompted to behave in ways which comes between me and reality.
 Desire carries me away.

M:  Increase and widen you desires till nothing but reality can fulfil them.  It
 is not desire that is wrong, but its narrowness and smallness.  Desire is
 devotion.  By all means be devoted to the real, the infinite, the eternal heart
 of being.  Transform
 desire into love. All you want is to be happy.  All your desires, whatever thay
 may be, are expressions of your longing for happiness. Basicallyyou wish
 yourself well.

Q:  I know that I should not ....

M:  Wait! Who told you that you should not? What is wrong with wanting to be
 happy?

Q: The self must go, i know.

M:  but the self is there. Your desires are there. Your longing to be happy is
 there. Why? Because you love yourself.  By all means love yourself--wisely.
 What is wrong is to love yourself stupidly, so as to make yourself suffer.
 Love yourself wisely.
Both indulgence and austerity have the same purpose in view -- to
make you happy.  Indulgence is the stupid way, austerity is the wise way.

Q:  What is austerity?

M:  Once you have gome through an experience, not to go through it again is
 austerity.  To eschew the unnecessary is austerity.  Not to anticipate pleasure
 or pain is austerity.  Having things under control at all times is austerity.
 Desire by itself is
not wrong.  It is life itself, the urge to grow in knowledge and experience.
  it is the choices you make that are wrong.  To imagine that some little thing
-- food, sex, power, fame -- will make you happy is to deceive yourself.  Only
 something vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly
 happy.

Q: Since there is nothing basically wrong in desire as an expression of love of
 self, how should desire be managed?

M:  Live your life intelligently, with interests of your deepest self always in
 mind.  After all, what do you really want?  Not perfection; you are already
 perfect. What you seek is to express in action what you are.  For this you have
 a body and a mind.
 Take them in hand and make them serve you.

Q: Who is the operator here? Who is to take the body-mind in hand?

M: The purified mind is the faithful servant of the self.  It takes charge of
 the instruments, inner and outer, and makes them serve their purpose.

Q: And what is their purpose?

M: The self is universal and its aims are universal.  there is nothing personal
 about the self.  Live an orderly life, but don't make it a goal by itself.  It
 should be the starting point for high adventure.

Q:  Do you advise me to come to India repeatedly?

M:  If you are earnest, you don't need moving about.  You are yourself wherever
 you are and you create your own climate.  Locomotion and transportation will
 not give salvation.  You are the body and dragging the body from place to place
 will take you nowh
ere.  Your mind is free to roam the three worlds -- make fill
use of it.

Q:  If i am free, Why am I in a body?

M:  You are not in the body, the body is in you!  The mind is in you.  they
 happen to you.  they are there because you find them interesting.  Your very
 nature has the infinite capacity to enjoy.  It is full of zest and affection.
 It sheds its radiance o
n all that comes within its focus of awareness and nothing is excluded. It does
 not know evil nor ugliness, it hopes, it trusts, it loves.  You people do not
 know how much you miss by not knowing your own true self.  Yor are neither the
 body or mind, neit
her the fuel or fire.  They appear and disappear according to their own laws.
        That which you are, your true self, you love it, and whatever you do, you do
 for your own hapiness.  To find it, to know it, to cherish it is your basic
 urge.  Since time immemorial you loved yourself, but never wisely.  use your
 body and mind wisely in
the service of the self, that is all.  Be true to your ownself, love your self
 absolutely.  Do not pretend that you love others as yourself.  Unless you have
 realized tham as oone with yourself, you cannot love them.
Don't pretend to be what you are not, don't refuse to be what you are. Your
 loveof others is the result of selfknowledge, not its cause.  Without
 selfrealization, no virtue is genine.  When you know beyond all doubting that
 the same life flowa through all
 that is and you are that life, you will love all naturally and
spontaneously.  When you realize the depth and fullness of your love of
 yourself, you know that every living being and the entire universe are included
 in your affection.  But when you look at anything as separate from you, you
 cannot love it for you are
afraid of it.  Alienation causes fear and ear deepens alienation. It is a
 vicious circle.  Only self- realization can break it. Go for it
resolutely.


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Shashikanth Hosur                                Email:shashi at kbsdec2.tamu.edu
Dept Of Industrial Engg                                shashi at kbssun1.tamu.edu
Texas A&M University                                   shashikanth at tamu.edu

Home:(409) 691 8644
Fax: (409) 846 5468
office :(409) 845 0441
                                  !OM!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Your right is to work only, but never to the fruit thereof. Nor let your
 attachment for the fruits of your action lead you to inaction.

                                        - BhagavatGita 2:47
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love All and Serve All
                        --- Bhagwan Sri Sathya Sai Baba

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