Beyond Delight, Beyond Bliss

Action which originates from the mind without attachment we can call Non-action. In fact this activity arises without mind at all. We can call this No-mind. You may be doing many things in the world, but if there is no attachment to the outcome, to the objects of action, you remain free.

The delight which comes from sensory experience is always fleeting. When an experience is repeated an earlier desire which had been stored in memory is recalled to repeat the experience. The delight derived from that experience is already past - not fresh - because it has been recalled. First you need desire, then an object of desire, then experience through the senses. Only an unwise person seeks to repeat experience. A wise person knows that every experience, every delight, is fleeting and will not touch it. Everyone in the world is unhappy; not a single person finds happiness because they delight in old experience. No one asks for anything fresh, not only the common man but even kings, even diamond merchants. Kings want diamonds like the Kohinoor to be happy. No-one's desires are fulfilled.

There is something very precious which is not stored in the memory. Give it any name or no name, it will bring satisfaction and bliss. It will take you beyond bliss. This is our topic here: first delight, then bliss, and then beyond.

Nobody gets out of this trap of delight: Everybody is caught in it. You look for bliss but where is it to be found? Bliss means anything not recalled from memory. This will never be discovered on your own because it is found only through association with a sage, a perfect person, one who has known it and can enable you to have this experience; or from the recorded experiences of ancient sages in authorized sutras.

With the help of your own desire for abiding happiness, for abiding bliss, for freedom, you will discover something beyond that which can be called consciousness. There's nothing beyond consciousness. Once you attain consciousness there's nothing more to be attained. Anything that can be attained will be lost.

Consciousness is like the Kohinoor, the world's most precious diamond. No one has yet attained it yet it has to be aspired for, to reach for something fresh, something new. How can it be unattainable and yet be desired? Because in its attainment the knower, the known and the means of knowing all merge into That itself. So it is both attained and yet never attained. In the realization of consciousness you have attained everything that is worth attaining. It is complete and perfect. It is moksham - liberation. It is emancipation, it is perfection. You can call it bliss, you can call it beyond bliss. People call it emptiness, people call it fullness, yet it is beyond words. It has never been described so far. It is That which has to be aspired for - something which you have never heard described before. It cannot be held in memory, nor can it be seen, heard, touched or thought about.

When the mind blinks for a moment everything arises. This manifestation is the result of just one blink of the mind. If you don't wink for this single moment everything will cease. If you don't stir the mind just for this instant - this finger snap - that which I speak about is here and now. And, my dear friends, you are That… you are That… you are That.

If you have heard these words without them landing anywhere - without them touching your memory - you have gone beyond. If somehow this has penetrated into the memory, trespassed there, then you will have to fall in love with it, keep fully devoted to it. Walking, talking, sleeping, dreaming, on awakening each day - always keep in touch with it - think of it, speak to it, worship it even. This which is beyond everything is the only thing to be worshipped. Don't be afraid to worship this, because all things are within This which I speak about.

Everything is to be worshipped. Everything which you worship is That itself. What else could there be? If you have some gold you can make any shape out of it - any animal or bird - but its essential gold-ness will not be lost. Only the name and form can change, the gold-ness cannot be lost. If you understand this with your total consciousness you will see that everything which exists in consciousness must be consciousness itself. Everything in the river, every wave, every bubble, every tide must be made of the same substance which is liquid, which is water. Look at the river and not its expressions, like bubbles and waves. Knowing this you don't need anything else.

This single instruction is quite enough for those who have deserved it, earned it through eons of time. Some will still postpone for a year or till the end of this incarnation. But why you are here? You are alive just to know who you have been, who you would be, and who you are now. You have lost track of it so you need some guidance. Find a guide and listen to him once. Follow him and you are out of this trap. If you don't want to listen it doesn't matter; for after all, how long can this trap remain a trap? Somehow its trap-ness will have to be dissolved and solved once and for all.

One satsang is quite enough. Knowing this truth you are always in satsang. Satsang means to live as Truth itself - which means to live as the Self, to live as consciousness. Who can say, "I am not my Self?" He who knows, "I am the Self." is in satsang. And if someone says, "I am not the Self." it is still excellent - he is still in satsang. If the fish in the water can cry, "I am thirsty," it means she is alive in the water - she's not thirsty. In satsang you are not told to do anything - to practice anything - because there are no modifications; it is immaculate, it is pure, it is purity itself. You are pure. You may have been taught to believe that, "I am impure, I am bound" but it is only talk. How can "I am." be impure or bound? To say "I am." is enough. If you add something to it there will be trouble.

Make the best of this time - don't postpone. This postponement is called manifestation, is called bondage. If you don't postpone you are here and now - you are free. This postponement is called mind which says, "I will do it later; I will do tomorrow". Mind is past. Past is memory and memory is universe, manifestation, and repetition of births and deaths, suffering and tension. But just to know: "I am suffering," is enough to end suffering. You must simply know what that "I am" is.

It is not the body nor the mind nor the intellect. If you say, "I am," can you show this I am? It's not the body. You can just investigate: Just find out where this ‘I am’ is. You will not find it - you will not find ‘I am’ anywhere - only words. So after sometime I'm speaking about this happiness, and knowing this is called equanimity, peace, bliss. And before that was delight. Anything that is fleeting is called delight. Anything that is abiding is not delight; so here you are at peace. Equanimity is there and you are bliss. Here is the bliss.

So keeping up this for some time in this state and not looking for, not desiring for anything from the memory of the past staying for sometime here and you will be thrown or called from somewhere else by someone else into somewhere else which you have never heard before. Because what you hear is only about waking, dreaming, sleeping - that's all you have know so far. Anything that speaks to you in this physical form is waking state. Subtle form that you dream in the night is dreaming state. There also you have got relations and we see mountains and rivers and forests and animals... subtle form. And then also we have experience, and then in sleep also. That's all the three states we know. Therefore we have delight in one and we have bliss in the sleep state. Again we repeat the same circle endlessly.

So staying here in this state you will be called from somewhere else into somewhere else. That state is not a state. States are only three. Beyond that you can't call it a state. That is, you can call it a word. If you have to use word I believe the sanskrit word is pragya. Pragna is beyond that, beyond states you see. Beyond the beyond is called pragna. So that state is beyond the delight and beyond the happiness and beyond the bliss even. It is not even this; it is not even Self. It's not even It. What has been given in some sutras “It” word is used. That word is used, tat is used; not even that. That cannot be comprehended by mind nor expressed, nor described, nor experienced; because for any kind of delight, bliss, enjoyment, you need someone to experience. Mind doesn't go there; senses do not present themselves there. So when all these beat retreat - mind, intellect, senses - when they beat retreat, that beyond is called... tita is the word. Some say, "Beyond." Let beyond be beyond. I don't touch it.

Because I receive many letters; even today I will see. The letters always mention: “We lose what we get in the satsang when we return back home. We lose it after some time, and then we do not know what to do.” So it means anything that you hear in satsang you have stored in the mind; so that is what we are discussing about and this thing that you are storing in the mind. You want to call for and repeat it. When you're here do not store in the memory so that you lose it. Anything can be called back from memory. When it doesn't land in the memory you can't call back. So they're in trouble. They can't call back therefore they take to some other exercises.

So one of these letters I will read: “After the satsang in Lucknow I lost it in a month.” So I am just speaking about this thing. Do not try to grab it, grasp it and store it into the memory. Anything stored in the memory is not satsang. It's called learning - it's called knowledge - that you go to the universities and get a doctorate out of that which is stored in the memory. It's not that knowledge. It cannot be stored in the memory, you see. Never it has been done. So let the word pass through and through. Pierce through the mind and through the intellect and let it go from where it came. One word, any one time, whatever, whenever, wherever possible - it is that one word which will work.

So I am again trying to clarify: Don't try to understand what is spoken here. Just keep quiet. Don't try to listen even. Just keep quiet and let it go. What is happening, you don't be concerned of it. That is some higher supreme power. You are in the lap of supreme power. Don't use your intellect here. It is She who will take care of you. It is He who will take care of you. It is It that will take care of itself. Who are you to understand it? So keep quiet for once. Don't blink and don't wink and keep quiet for one single second. Otherwise you will have notions and expectations and ideations. That's what you will make out of this satsang. Don't try to have any notion, any hope that here we have come with the hope that we will be free. Give up this hope either. No hopes and no notions and no tensions also. No ideas about what it is. Don't form any ideas about it, you see. This is called quietness, equanimity, silence and peace. Then the supreme itself will enter into your open heart and sit down there permanently, because it is already there and you are otherwise engaged. Therefore it is concealed by some other desire: "I want this, and I want that," you see.

So do what you have to do? Anything to which you have camouflaged or concealed the original ultimate nature of your own Self has to be discovered, uncovered, or to be revealed. It has to reveal itself by itself; not by any effort. Not by any effort. Not even to think about anything of the past, present and future. No thought and no effort. That is the requirement. How this precious gem where it is concealed by you - how it will reveal itself. The gem doesn't need your candle to be seen. It has its own luster, self-effulgent. Like, you will not see the sun through the light of your candle but through its own rays. Who needs a candle to see the sun? He doesn't need because the sun has the luster of light itself. So anything which is light you don't need any effort to see.

You don't need to do anything. Simply keep quiet - allow it to reveal itself. If you had kept quiet even for a single instant, for a finger snap, with a wink of you eye - once - during this travel that you have done for 35 million years, my dear friends who are here. This is all a blink of the mind, and now if we are quiet it has to reveal. It is self-effulgent. Never it has been concealed. But when the desire is there then it is concealed because we desire something else. And that something else we do not know - that something else is also the same thing. What else you can aspire? Where from do you get anything else which is not already there? Where from? Who are you? So this is so simple. The trouble is with its beauty and simplicity and self-effulgence.

You please merge into it - jump into it. That's all. Jumping into the lake of nectar, lake of amritam, who will die? And we are afraid. In ambrosia - drinking ambrosia - I will die... How ridiculous.

21 November, 1992