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Know Thyself
MASTER E. K.
KULAPATHI BOOK TRUST

VISAKHAPATNAM
First Edition : 2016 (55th Gurupooja Celebrations)
Copies : 1000
c KULAPATHI BOOK TRUST
Price : Rs. 100/-
For Copies :
KULAPATHI BOOK TRUST
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VISAKHAPATNAM - 530 002
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ISBN : 978-93-82199-36-6
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Foreword
Listening to Master E.K. when he discourses
is a treat for the Souls. Master E.K. excels while
teaching. His expressions leave a deep impression
in the listeners. His piercing looks, his sparkling
smile inspire the Souls while the substance of his
discourse is absorbed into subconscious mind.
I was a witness for three years to Master E.K.'s
discourses in Europe during the years 1981, 1982
and 1983. The seven subjects that are presented
through this book “Know Thyself”, the third
volume of Overseas Messages, are real gems of
Wisdom which every ardent aspirant shall need to
preserve in the chamber of his heart for regular
recollection.
The teachings of the Master remain ever
fragrant, to inspire every sincere aspirant and
encourage the aspirant to move further on the path.
A keen study not only unfolds the hints to practice
but also enables association with the sublime
energy of Master E.K.
May the readers be benefited.
- K. PARVATI KUMAR
All rights relating to this book belong to “Kulapathi
Book Trust”, Visakhapatnam-530 002, which is the
exclusive owner of the books written by Kulapathi Ekkirala
Krishnamacharya (Master E. K.). Extracts can be taken
with the prior permission of the Trust.
The publishing unit is constituted to propagate the

Ancient Wisdom given out to Humanity from time to time.
The proceeds from the sale of the book are utilised for
reinvestment in similar books in pursuance of the objective
of the propagating Truth.
The contents of this book are dedicated to the

humanity at large. They belong to the One Light and the
One Truth that pervades and is beyond the concepts of
Caste, Creed, Religion and Nation.
Blessed are those.......
The Brotherhood of Machilipatnam Branch of W.T.T
feel blessed by the Divine grace of Master E.K. in bringing
out the third volume of “Overseas Messages” entitled
“Know Thyself ” to be released in 55th Gurupuja
Celebrations - 2016.
We are very much indebted to the W.T.T. European
Brotherhood for providing us the recordings of Master E.K.’s
Overseas Lectures. We are also thankful to Sri S. S. Mohan
Babu and his son Chy. Vivek who typed all the Lectures.
Finally we record with gratitude, the unstinting efforts
made by Brothers Ch. S. N. Raju, K. Rama Prasad and
T. Nagalingeswara Rao in proof reading and editing these
lectures.
In this connection we humbly request the readers to
become aware of the fact that we have published these
spiritual discourses strictly adhering to their original source.
We have done this with meticulous care to preserve their
pristine form and present the thought, the content and the
mellifluous flow of Master E.K.’s language with his
inimitable style of writing with impecable diction, idiom
and intonation.
At some places the readers may feel the subject
disconnected or ambiguous which in no way dampens or
depletes the wider pespective, purport and purpose of the
Ageless Wisdom that is eternal and supernal.
We fervently hope, the readers will feel elated, elevated
and enlightened after going through this repository of
revelations of wisdom.
Machilipatnam W.T.T. BROTHERHOOD

1-1-2016 Machilipatnam Branch
Acknowledgements
We are thankful to the blessed couple Sri
Kavuri Rama Prasad and Smt.K.V. Varalakshmi
of Machilipatnam and their children Ravi
Srilakshmi Bhargavi, K. Hariharanath and
K. Kalyana Sitaram (U.S.A.) for their financial
contribution towards the publication of the
Overseas discourses of Master E. K. entitled
“Know Thyself” (Overseas Messages Volume-III).
Sri Rama Prasad was a student of Master E.K.
in Andhra University (1971-73) and has been doing
self-less service in the fields of Health and
Publication division for the last three decades in
the World Teacher Trust, Machilipatnam Branch.
May their family be blessed by the Divine
grace of Master E. K.
11-1-2016 Ch. S. N. Raju

Machilipatnam Managing Trustee
Kulapathi Book Trust
Index
1. Know Thyself 1
2. The Soul and its Path 38
3. The Evolution of Consciousness of Man 62
4. The Power of Habit 90
5. The Work as Discipline and Prayer 118
6. The work of the Masters of Wisdom 145
7. To Die is Not to Die 164

.
Know Thyself
efore I start my lecture I have the duty to thank you

B all once again for the affection you have shown. This
is the last day of our gathering for this season. Many times
we have gathered here since 1972 as far as I remember,
but previously we might have met many times. It is the
purpose that decides our meeting and not our programmes.
Our programming is only an apparent formality which has
a significance in the deeper background.
Everything is valuable for the purpose it serves.
Nothing is valuable by itself, except the one content of
everything which we call the Omnipresence of the Lord.
That is the only thing that is important by itself. All the
other things are valuable for the purpose they serve and
any purpose is valuable only when it serves the purpose
of God-awakening in us. It is only an attempt to have a
God-awareness that we meet many times and speak of the
many subjects. The many subjects are only formalities. The
content of all subjects is only one and the relationship that
binds us all is only one. We can call it God, we can call
it Love. It is only a difference in names. I specially thank
our brother Raymond who has made our gatherings
possible. Of course I need not express my thanks to the
2 Know Thyself
one soul who expects me here every year, and who invites
me silently. I thank all the hearts; who are with me all these
days, and who will be with you through out the year.
Today's subject is "Know Thyself".
We have this sentence 'Know Thyself', in every
scripture. It is among the oldest of the sentences, man
discovered. Generally, in the beginning we don't understand
the significance of this sentence. When the teacher says,
"Know Thyself", it appears simple and childish. I know
myself already. My name is Krishnamacharya, that much
everyone knows. Everyone knows himself by name and
by the name of the parents, by the address and telephone
number. Beyond this, it is doubtful if one knows oneself.
Some people know themselves by their thoughts and
intelligence. Some people know themselves by their own
philosophy of life which is quite different from the
philosophy of others. But unfortunately, the more different
our philosophy is from others, the more distinguished we
will be in the society and the more useless we are to the
society. This is the child's play of God. God allows us
to behave in our own way. He allows us to live without
knowing ourselves. He allows us to live by knowing others,
not ourselves. I can know many of you, but I cannot know
myself.
I can see what is wrong in you, but I cannot see what
is wrong in me. I can find out if your dress is beautiful
or not, but I cannot find whether I am handsome. That is
the limitation God has set upon everyone of us. So, many
of us know something of others and less of ourselves. The
more we try to make our thoughts distinguished from others,
Overseas Messages - III 3
the more our philosophy becomes different from others,

a little bit greater or higher than others, the less useful we
become to others. Because the more we are different from
others, the less is there that is common with others. Unless
we have something in common with others, we cannot be
useful to others, or others cannot be useful to us. Think
of the air we are breathing; it is common to everyone, the
same air we breathe in and breathe out. That is the reason
why it is useful to all. That is the reason why it is making
us all live. It is the commonness that makes things useful,
and not the uniqueness or the distinction. But generally
we try to have some distinction in something, because of
our intellect and genius and uniqueness. And the more we
try to do so, the less we will be significant and the less
we will be useful to ourselves or others. This is the child's
play which the Lord plays with all of us because He wants
us to know how He lives in us. He lives in everyone as
a common property and He has no differences or
distinctions, no castes of high or low.
He has no shame to live even in the lowest beast
or animal and He is inevitable even in the highest
philosopher. You see, it is this one quality that makes Him
God; it is not His greatness that makes Him God.
The concept of greatness is a disease in the human
being which never exists in other kingdoms. For example,
there is no concept of greatness either in animals or in
plants. Animals are bigger or smaller but they are not greater
or inferior. If we see a lion and a dog we feel that the lion
is a superior animal and the dog is an inferior animal, not
because there is a difference in the quality of animals but
4 Know Thyself
because we have a mental disease called 'the human way

of looking at things'. We see low and high, superior and
inferior. But, the Omnipresence of God teaches us that He
is not ashamed of being present in the so called inferior beings
also. It is this quality that makes Him God, and it is the
absence of this quality that makes us human beings. And
a duty lies before us, that is, we are expected to imitate God
and fill up the gap. Try to behave in the terms He behaves,
so that we may not be ashamed of being with anyone in
this world irrespective of high or low. To do this, we should
have a process of purification, a process of elimination, a
process of knowing what is 'I am' and what is not 'I am'.
That is the difference between the 'self' and the 'non-self'.
So, we should start with ourselves. For this reason, the
ancients warned us, "Know Thyself."
If we stand on the weighing machine, the machine
which takes our weight, Krishnamacharya will weigh about
63 or 64 kilos. If I think, "This is myself", that is one way
of knowing myself. That is I try to know myself in terms
of flesh and blood, bones, the skin, the hair and the nails.
No problem I am permitted to do like that but within a
short time I will understand that I am equating myself with
flesh and blood and bones and nothing else. Then there
is nobody to object but I myself begin to think, "Am I equal
to flesh and blood and bones and hair? Am I not something
more? Am I not the knowledge which I know? Am I not
the content of the books which I have studied? Am I not
the thoughts which I am thinking? Am I not the aspirations
which I have? Am I not the glorious ideals for which I
am working?" So, I begin to grow higher and higher up
until once again I find the whole thing is an illusion. Once

again the house of cards crumbles down because all the
things are only houses of cards. See, how the children build
houses with playing cards. They go on building higher and
higher until they crumble. In that way we begin to think
about our own ideals, our own philosophy, our own glorious
thoughts until we understand that it is our own self-creation
and illusion. Then, we believe this is all illusion and we
should think of God. Then, we begin to think of God. Man
has begun to think of God from the four corners of this
earth, differently and everyone has his own concept of God.
Therefore, we have many religions.
Suppose, four photographers stand on four towers of
Leon differently and take four different photographs of the
Leon city. They bring them to you and say, "This is Leon".
The Leon of every photo is quite different from the Leon
of another photo. But they are not false, they are true. They
are not bluffing. They have taken the photo of only one
city. Like that men have taken thousands of photos of the
city of God, the result is, everyone has his own photo of
God. One photo is different from the other. The God of
one fellow has moustaches and beard, the God of another
fellow has a third eye, another fellow's God has many heads.
Like this everyone has his own God. The reason is everyone
has his own impression of God, not God. So, what we
call God is only our impression of God and God exists
behind the impression and behind ourselves and within
ourselves just smiling like a little child. So, once again
we begin to know ourselves, knowing our limitations. So,
'knowing thyself' is a long process. And once again I tell
6 Know Thyself
you a little story about 'knowing thyself'. It is also a story

from the scriptures. It is also a legend just as one brother
has pointed out yesterday. But a legend is more true than
a historical incident because historical incident occurs only
once, legend occurs always. Suppose, there is a fight in
the street, it is an incident. But if you say, "Winter is cold",
it is cyclic. If you say, "The earth is going round itself",
that is cyclic. So, always legend is more true than an incident
that happened. So, once again we will take a little story
from a legend.
A son approached his father and said, "Father! I have
a question". The father said, "Ask me".
And the son asked, "Wherefrom are all these living
beings coming? And whereto are they going again? And
why?"
Then the father smiled and said, "My dear boy,
wherefrom does this question come to your mind? Close
your eyes and trace the birth place of this question. You
will know it. It is from that place all these beings are coming
out. It is in that place all these beings are living and into
that place all these beings merge again."
Then the son began to think. He closed his eyes and
discovered something, opened the eyes and said, "Father
I found out. This is all matter. Everyone has a body built
with matter. All this world is full of matter. So, from matter
everything is coming. In matter everything is existing and
into matter everything is disappearing."
The father said, "Yes, you are right."
Then after a few days, the son asked, "Father there

is something else. Matter cannot move by itself. There is
something that is moving my hand. There is something
that is lifting articles. There is something different from
matter. What is that from which matter and myself are
coming? Into what are we going?"
The father said, "Wherefrom did this question come
to you? Again close your eyes and meditate".
The son meditated and said, "It is force. From force,
matter is coming. And in force, matter is moving. And into
force all these are going."
The father said, "Yes, you are right".
Then after a few days, the son said, "Father! there is
matter in my hand, there is force which is moving the hand.
But unless I want it to move, neither the force nor the matter
moves. So, what is in me that is different from matter and
force, which I call "I am"? From what are these two things
coming and into what are they receding?"
The father said, "Once again it is the birth place of
your question?"
Then again the son meditated and said, "Mind". So,
the mind is asking the force to move the matter. The mind
is directing force. Force is moving matter. So, everyone
and everything come from mind, they live in mind and
they go into mind."
The father said, "Once again you are right."
The son smiled and said, "First when I said that it is
all matter, you said that I was correct. Then when I corrected
8 Know Thyself
and said, it was force, you said that I was correct. When
a third time I said it is mind, you said, "You are correct".
What do you mean?"
Then the father said, "First time you were correct.
Second time you were more correct. Third time also you
are more correct. That is what I mean my son. Your logic
and reasoning should have the principle of inclusion and
not exclusion. In order to know the ultimate truth whenever
you discover a new truth, it should be able to include the
older truths and find a better place of older truths you know.
As long as you exist in a state of discovering something
new and discarding something old, you will remain as
a fool. That is what is called 'the principle of exclusion'.
However intellectual you may be, however great you may
be, unless your new discovery finds a place in the older
truth, there is no possibility of your knowing the truth at
all. Suppose I say the dog is white. I say the same dog
is black. Then you should not think that I am a fool. You
should immediately understand that the dog is black and
white spotted. So, a human mind needs a widening of
comprehension and a constant widening, an attitude of
continuous widening of the comprehension. Then only you
will understand that everyone is right in his own way in
this world. Unless you know that everyone is right in his
own way, you can never find the ultimate truth of this
creation because this ultimate creation lies in the totality
of the whole creation. Any part of this creation remains
only a part, and not the whole. However great a philosophy
may be, however rare a thought may be, it cannot be an
ultimate truth. And as long as you are comparing the various
philosophies of world, as long as you are thinking who

is correct, you will be confused and misled. And you will
grow and grow and die in the same state in which you are
born. That is the danger of knowledge and intelligence.
There is something which is more than knowledge and
intelligence that is what is called 'the principle of inclusion'.
You should be able to include everyone in your heart. You
should be able to recognise truth and the usefulness of
everyone in this world. As long as you find some people
great and some people less, as long as you find some people
glorious and some people useless fellows, you will be able
and very active in your own intelligence until you die in
the same intelligence. So, I give you the first key to open
the secrets of wisdom.
The secrets of wisdom exist in 'Liberation', not in
intelligence. Liberation is from self-conditioning. And self-
conditioning is due to your own intelligence and genius.
You will go on binding yourself with the knowledge you
have. At every step your knowledge becomes your bondage
and your limitation. Therefore, understand you are correct
in all the three stages. When you said, you are matter, you
are correct. When you said, you are force, you are correct.
When you said, you are mind, you are correct. But, still
there is something for you to travel and find out. As long
as you are travelling, you are correct. The moment you
find that the materialist is wrong you are dead, you are
wrong. The moment you find that the philosopher is wrong,
you are wrong. Like that, if you find anyone in this world
wrong, that means you have stopped your journey,
therefore, you are wrong. Till now, you are right.
10 Know Thyself
And then once again the son thought about it. Then
he understood that there is a great intelligence that is
working out this machine. See, how the heart is beating
even though there is no cardiologist inside. See, how the
blood is circulating. See, how the lungs are taking in only
Oxygen and giving out only Carbon-di-oxide even though
we do not know chemistry. For, a boy who does not know
the word Oxygen, takes in only Oxygen. See, there is a
great intelligence that is working inside irrespective of the
intelligence we have. Our intelligence knows only some
things. We have many things which we do not know. We
are ignorant of many millions of things that are happening
in our body. So, there is an 'Intelligence' that is working,
so from 'Intelligence' everything is coming. Mind, Force
and Matter are all coming from one great unit of
Intelligence, they are living in one great Intelligence. They
are again going back into the same Intelligence."
The father said, "You are correct once again."
And the son said, "Just as we are here in one
Intelligence, the one Intelligence is also here. Father! is
it not that there is one total Intelligence existing?"
The father said, "Yes".
The son said, "By what name can we call Him?"
The father said, "By the same name 'man'. If you know
Him you will know Thyself".
And the son said, "It is confusing. If I call this limited
intelligence 'man' and the total Intelligence also by the name
'man', it is confusing. Therefore, I call this 'man', I call
that 'God.' So, man, know thyself means man, 'know God'.
Man should know himself as in God, existing in God,
coming from God and going into God. So, both are one.
Man and God are one but man comes from God, man exists
in God and man goes into God. How is it possible? See,
how the wave in the ocean comes from the ocean, exists
in the ocean and again disappears in the ocean. Is the wave
different from the ocean? But unless it is different, why
do you call it a wave? Why can't you call it a ocean itself?
There is no difference between the wave and the ocean
but at the same time there is a difference between a wave
and the ocean. If you stand against the wave carelessly,
it will wash you off. So, in the form of great force wave
exists different from the ocean. But at the same time nothing
exists as wave, different from the ocean.
Take a beaker of water and place a piece of ice in it.
Ice block floats on water. Is ice different from water? There
is no difference between ice and water but unless there
is difference, ice cannot float upon water. Is it possible
that water floats on water? There is difference between
ice and water. At the same time ice and water are the same.
Similarly, man and God are the same but man floats on
the water of God.
The father said, "You are correct. You are going on right
lines. Meditate upon it. Know thyself. This is the path."
Then the son meditated, came and asked the father
one more question, "Father, I could understand all the four
aspects which exist as the four aspects of the same God.
There is the steam rising from water, there is water, there
is ice. They are three different items but they are only one.
12 Know Thyself
In all the three, there exists something as the fourth which

is the content of all the three. Like that, four are existing.
In the Intelligence which we call God, mind is existing,
force is existing and matter is existing. Mater is existing
as ice block, force is existing as water, mind is existing
as steam and the Intelligence is existing as the common
essence of the three. This is what we call the Presence of
the One in the three. We can call it the Omnipresence, that
is myself. If I want to know myself, if you want to know
thyself, it is this Omnipresence of this God."
The father said, "Yes, you are correct. You are going
in the right lines. Proceed and meditate.
Then the son once again meditated and said, "Father
I am convinced of the existence of one God in all these.
I am also convinced that I am 'that I am', God. I am also
convinced that I am not God. When I am not God, I am
a man. When I am God, I am in Him and He is in me.
I am convinced of all these things, but there is one question.
What for is all this? Why is this whole creation? What is
the purpose of this creation? I want to know it."
The father smiled and said, "What for has this question
come in you? For the same reason the creation comes from
God."
Then the son said, "Because I want to know, this
question comes from me. I want to know it."
The father said, "Same is the answer in the creation
also. Because you wanted to know, the question came to
you. Because the God wanted to create, He created.
Meditate."
The son began to meditate but not yet convinced. It

is a little bit more difficult than the previous steps. The
previous steps were easy because they were steps to
understand. This is not a step to understand but one should
co-operate and one should leave off one's own beliefs.
Previously everyone of us believed something about the
creation. Everyone has his own philosophy, we believed
something about God. And we have our own point of view.
Unless we throw our point of view into the river and stand
without any point of view, we are not convinced of this.
Our city Leon is very lucky, there are two rivers at our
disposal. Any time we can walk a few steps and throw our
point of view in the river.
But we don't prefer to do it so easily because we are
intelligent. That is the whole trouble. So, the son was not
convinced.
"Father I want to know what for God creates? Why
the creation exists? What is its very purpose, its function?
See, some people are laughing and some people are
weeping in this world. Why? Why can't God answer this
question?"
The father smiled and said, "People are laughing and
people are weeping. You have to ask them and not God,
why they are laughing and why they are weeping."
Then the son said, "Some people are created happy
and some people are created unhappy. Why should God
do this?"
Then the father smiled and said, "My dear boy, God
created only people, He never created either happy people
14 Know Thyself
or unhappy people. He created people and left them to the

world. Everyone created his own happiness and unhappiness.
So, some day or other everyone has to solve his own problem
and come to God once again with smiling face."
Then the son asked, "Suppose, man is ignorant and
he has created his own misery, why can't God remove it?"
Then the father smiled and said, "You bring to me a fellow
who has run into debts and bankruptcy. You pay off his
debts, I will give you money as much as you want. Do
you know what happens? He will be again in debts. Do
you know this fundamental truth? It is because debt is only
a mental disease and not an environmental requirement.
So, everyone should be allowed to clear off his own debts.
In the same way everyone should be allowed to work out
his own problems. If God were to work out the problems
of individuals, people do not understand that they are
creating problems to themselves. They go on creating
problems and God should be daily clearing the problems.
So, I very much pity your idea of God i.e. God is a servant
to wash away your sins. Everyday we commit sins and
throw the servant God some money in the name of prayer
and ask him, "You fellow come and wash my sins." So,
He has to come and wash our sins. So, you have no better
opinion about God than a detergent and a washing soap,
than a napkin, than a wash basin. We have only that much
of good opinion about God fellow. See, we have to pity
our own logic. We have to feel shameful of our own thought
of God. We have to know ourselves better so that we find
the face of God cleaner than our garments. Because so far
we know only God as a detergent who cleans our sins.
Let us have a better idea of God.
Then the father said, "People are creating their own

problems. And everyone creates his own smile and his
own weeping. Everyone thinks his own thought. When it
is inconvenient for him, he begins to think that the thought
is God-given. No doubt, man is God-given, the mind and
the senses are God-given, the whole machine is God-given,
but how we use the machine is not God-given. Because
He has entrusted every one of us, the human beings with
a machine, He wanted us to get trained into the proper
use of the machine. That is why, the wise ones say that
it is a great opportunity to be born as a human being on
this earth. Fools believe that human birth is a privilege.
Wise men believe that it is an opportunity. There is a lot
of difference. Those, who believe that the human birth is
a privilege, misuse their intelligence, their body and create
their own misery because they believe that it is a privilege.
They wrongly believe that the human being is the greatest
of all beings on this earth. Just as hundred dogs come
together and make a conference and decide that dogs are
the highest beings in this creation. Similarly, the human
fellow also is inclined to believe that the human birth is
the highest. There is no difference between a dog and a
human being, if he believes like that.
So, the wise ones warn us to remember that the human
birth is not a privilege but an opportunity. That means you
should make a better use of it. We should know the economy
of time and span of life. We should know the economy
of the value of the machine given to us. And therefore,
it is for everyone of them to answer why they are laughing
and why they are weeping."
16 Know Thyself
Then the son asked, "Father I am not convinced. I want

to know only one thing. If intelligence were to be the
ultimate thing everyone goes into intelligence and becomes
heartless. Everyone will be a cold and callous fellow not
caring for father, mother or children or neighbour. When
you ask him, "Why are you cold, callous and heartless and
brutish? Why are you not affectionate? The fellow answers
affection is a weakness, it is emotion. There is neither
father nor mother, neither friend nor neighbour. There is
only one fellow called God and He is the greatest
intelligence. So, if that were to be the real God, the greatest
ideal of human being is too heartless, cold and cruel. A
fellow goes into selfishness, he shuts himself into his own
mind. He refuses to come out and communicate with others
because he feels that others are only false. There is only
one that is God. All these people are in ignorance. They
do not know what God is. I know what God is. He is the
great intelligence who is working in all these fellows. So,
I know Him only, why should I know these people?
This becomes the ideal of the human fellow. And this
were to be the idea of God as the goal of the human fellow,
there is no greater devil than God. But God must be
something different from this. You know what Buddha said,
"Be careful of this fellow who gains mastery over his senses
and mind, you need not be careful of the fellow who lives
in senses and sensual "pleasures and emotions". After all
the fellow is ardent and very hot; there is no danger with
this fellow. But some of those people who try to gain
mastery over their mind and senses go to the heart, some
of them go to their intelligence. And those who go to the
intelligence close themselves in their mind, and they die

a miserable death as cruel beasts of intelligence. They know
all the scriptures, they know everything that is intelligent,
they know all the strong points and weak points of
humanity, they live to control the world.
So, a mastery over senses is a worthy attempt but by
attempting to do so if you go into a wrong way of
detachment, that is a theory of exclusion of others, then
we go into cruelty and there is no possibility of our getting
salvation even through thousands of births and rebirths.
This is what Gauthama, the Buddha, warned his disciples.
Do not seek mastery over yourself. I will give mastery over
yourself but seek for compassion for others. You can live
a thousand lives, births and deaths, with all your weaknesses
and emotions and all your defects, there is no danger at
all with them. You will be readily excused by the Lord
who is compassionate but you will never be excused if
you go into the subtle intelligence which gives you keys
to understand everyone in the world. So, people who try
to gain mastery over their mind and senses should not take
the path of intelligence. They should take the path of
compassion. Then self-mastery will be automatically
given by the Lord Compassionate. This is what Buddha
has warned his disciples. It includes a profound and a deep
truth. There is no danger if we live as ordinary human beings
with all the faults and defects. We may eat, drink and dance,
we may commit adultery and we may speak untruth but
God is there waiting in our hearts to take the opportunity
to purify us from all these things, because He is 'all
compassion', He has no anger towards our defects. Where
18 Know Thyself
you are weak you are saved, where you are wicked and
intelligent you are never tolerated.That is what Buddha said.
There is a difference between weakness and evil.
Luckily, more than 99% of the human beings are weak
not wicked. There will be very rarely one or two wicked
fellows and they are not tolerated by God, because they
have to continue for thousands and thousands of births and
rebirths. They have to submit their own intelligence to Lord
and then only the Lord begins to make His manifestation
from their heart. So, we remember these words of Buddha
also before we proceed further. So, if intelligence were
to be the ultimate concept of God, if God were to be the
greatest of the intelligences then it is too cruel. But we
don't find the world like that. What is there between a
mother and a child? Definitely the relationship is not
intelligence. It should be something more. What is the
relationship between a father and a son, between two real
brothers, between two real friends, between a dog and its
real master, between the horse and its real master between
a cat and its real master in the house? The relationship
is not intelligence. Father, there is something else which
is allowing the creation to go on. There is some other face
of God which is yet hidden to me. What is that?"
Then the father said, "The face is the same place
wherefrom your question has come. Meditate."
And then the son meditated and said, "Father, it is what
I propose to call Love."
And the father said, "I call it Bliss, I call it Joy." Then
the son said, "I too call it joy. It is from this, all this creation
is coming. It is in this, all this creation is continuing. It

is into this, all the creation once again goes. Now, I
understand why God creates. Now, I understand why I
question you. Because the question came to my mind. Now
I understand why the question came to my mind. This
is because it is my joy. I find the great pleasure to have
this question because it brings me the answer also. Unless
there is an answer hidden inside, there is no scope for a
question in the mind. Can anyone question about a 'what'
if he does not know 'what' at all? Suppose, I have seen
this table here. Tomorrow I come here if I do not find
this table, I ask my friend, "Where is the table?" Does
that mean that I know the table or not? Unless I know
the table, I cannot question about the table. Unless I know
about something, I cannot question about that something".
That is what the father said.
Then the son said, "I am not able to follow you, I am
not convinced".
Then the father said, "Let there be an example. It is
time for us to take bath now, let us go to the river."
They went to the river and then the father said, "My
boy I forgot to bring my vessel to the river, a container. Go
home and search for my vessel in my room and bring it."
The son went home, searched for it and came back
and said,
"I could not find your vessel."
Then the father asked, "What for did you search?"
"For your vessel".
20 Know Thyself
"Can't you find it?"

Then the son said, "I could not find it in your room."
Then the father took the vessel from his bag and said,
"Here is the vessel, but I will question you something. You
say you could not find my vessel in the room. You say
you searched for my vessel. Unless, you see the vessel
how could you search for it? What for have you searched?"
"For the vessel".
"When there is no vessel how could you search for
the vessel?"
Then the son thought a little, "Father, I remember your
vessel".
Then the father said, "Remember that there is a vessel
in your mind and with that vessel you searched for an
external, physical vessel."
Then the son said, "Yes, father".
"Do you know how the fellow prepared the vessel?
Before this vessel is there he had the vessel in his mind.
With the help of that vessel he prepared the mould. Then
only he prepared the physical vessel. So, unless there is
a vessel in his mind, the potter cannot produce the vessel.
So, the vessel should be in his mind before the vessel is
born. So, before we are able to question about something,
the concept must be in our mind. Unless the concept is
there in our mind, we cannot question about anything. For
example, can you question about something which you do
not know at all? Try to ask me one question about which
you do not know anything till now. Not possible. So,

you have the answer in you."
The son said, "Yes, now I am convinced. Unless I
have the answer in me, the question never comes to my
mind."
Then the father said, "Meditate wherefrom the question
comes. Then the meditation is joy. The question is a joy
to you, the answer is a pleasure to you, the solution is a
pleasure to you. Then when it is a joy and a pleasure,
why do you follow it? Is it compulsory for you to have
joy and pleasure?"
The son said, "It is my choice".
The father said, "Same is the answer with the God.
It is His joy to create, it is His pleasure to create. It is
not compulsory for Him to create and it is His sweet will
and pleasure. Beyond this you try to question".
Then the son went and meditated and he found no
question even though he meditated for ten thousand years
and came to the father and said, "Father, till now there
is no further question".
Then the father said, "Here is a kingdom where there
is no question. Here is the kingdom where the question
itself is the answer. Suppose, I drink water. I put some
sugar and drink some water. You ask me, "Why?" I say,
"Because it is sweet". You ask me, "If it is sweet what
is it to you?" I say, "It is good to me. I feel it happy."
Then you ask me, "Why do you feel happy?" The answer
is, "Because I feel it happy". Here is a plane of our
22 Know Thyself
consciousness where the question becomes the answer. So,

previously every question should have an answer. And
every question had its own answer. Everyone is involved
in his question and has the obligation to work out his own
answer. When one reaches this plane of consciousness
there is no question, there is only answer.
There is only joy and pleasure. Why God created, is
the question. It is His pleasure, is the answer. Why is
it His pleasure? The answer is the same answer for the
question why you like sugar. The answer is, because I
like. So, the whole creation comes from that plane of
consciousness where the question becomes the answer
beyond which no question exists to anyone in this world.
From that plane because of creation is coming, on that plane
the creation is existing, into that plane the creation is going.
All the other planes are included in it. And all the other
beings, living beings are included in it. All the planets,
the solar systems and the galaxies are included in it. So,
this is called the ultimate truth of it. And for those who
know, the meaning of it is the 'I am' in them. They are
the people who say 'Man, know thyself'. 'Man, know
thyself' means know yourself as the Love that exists as
the Omnipresence of the Lord, that exists as the Bliss, that
exists as your joy in you, as your pleasure in you. Everyone
is seeking it, searching for it. Everyone is miserable because
he is not able to find it. Or he is not able to handle himself
to find it. When a machine is given, when a motor car
is given, it takes you within a short time to the required
place. But when I do not know how to drive, when a motor
car is given to me in the streets of Leon, what happens
to my fate? I can't leave it there in the street and go away,

I can't drive it. So, I am miserable with my own machine.
Every fellow is miserable with his own machine. Everyone
wants to be happy and there is no second thought about
it in anyone. Can anyone believe if one truly says, "I don't
want to be happy". Sometimes when a fellow is too much
angry, he may say, "I don't want to be happy". But it is
a bluff. Wait for ten minutes, he wants to be happy. He
is hungry, if you give him something to eat, immediately
he eats and says, "I don't want to be happy." But he is
eating because he wants to be happy. There is no one in
this world who does not want to be happy. But temporarily
we are foolish sometimes to be happy with our own
happiness. So, because of not knowing how to be happy,
we are creating our own misery. Those who have known
how to handle machine and those who have known the
ultimate truth of this creation, question themselves 'Who
am I?'. Then the answer is, the fifth aspect, that is Love,
Bliss, Joy and Pleasure. It has no conditioning but we
impose conditions upon it because of our intelligence, our
knowledge and then we go sometimes away from our joy
and happiness. Again we have the pain of it. Again we
try to have our own pleasure or joy. This is the journey
of life. Some people believe the 'I am' as their body. They
are creating their own misery because they are not their
own body.
Generally, we take it for granted, body is ourselves.
Now I am carrying the sheets of paper, pieces of chalk,
and wearing my shoes and also socks, with all these dirty
things I say, "I am walking". So our ignorance makes us
24 Know Thyself
call all these things 'I am'. Similarly, we use the words
'I am' for the 'body'. We say, "My hand is paining". That
shows the hand is not I am. And where is the demarcation?
Where does the 'I am' exist? Not this body, no part of
the body is I am. The body is with me. That is what the
philosopher thinks. Therefore, he is wrong always. The
body is not with me like a pen or pencil but the body is
a part of me. That is the truth. It comes out of me just
as the ice block comes from water. The ice block is no
way different from water, yet it floats on the surface of
water. Similarly, from the I am in you, this body comes
out. Every second and minute it is being constructed like
that. So, it is different from you and not yourself like the
block of ice from water. We have our own thoughts, they
are not ourselves. But many times we identify ourselves
with our thoughts, and we are involved just as when we
are with a friend who is an idiot, when we go to another
friend's house with this idiot friend and when this idiot
friend goes into the house and into the kitchen and begins
to tackle with all the things in the house, breaks something,
burns something, then what will be your position?
Ridiculous.
So, if you identify yourself with your own thoughts,
you are involved, you are many times ridiculous, because
un-consciously you have identified with your own
intelligence, with your own philosophy, with your own
beliefs which are not yourself. So, we should have two
headings. Always you should be aware of two things. What
is the 'real I am' of you? What is 'mine'? You should never
confuse between the two things. Here, money comes under
'mine' because it comes and goes. Even if it goes we are

living. The houses, garments and valuables, radio, T.V.
all these things are 'mine'; they are not 'I am' and similarly
body also. See, is the hair myself or mine? Even when
the barber cuts it, we are living. So, it is mine and not
myself. Even if the doctor cuts a part of our body, we
are living. So, body is not ourselves. And in the course
of time we come to understand that even when death cuts
our body from ourselves we are there. Therefore, we are
not our body. Similarly are our thoughts. They are not
I am, because they come and go. Even when they are not
there, we are there. Our emotions are not ourselves. Our
relationships are also not ourselves. Suppose, I say, "She
is my wife". Is she wife to me, or to herself is she a wife?
If we take a little blood from her body, send it for
medical examination, there is nothing like 'wife' found in
the blood. If she were to be wife, she must be a wife of
her own. But she is the wife of a husband. And the husband
is not a husband to himself. So, our relationships exist
in our mind and they are not part of ourselves. And then,
the mind is not ourselves, because even when the mind
is not there, we are living. For example, sleep. We are
there alive even when we are sleeping. Then where are
we? We have to go gradually, step by step. That is why
it is compared with climbing up of steps on a mountain.
And then as you climb up higher and higher, you will find
that which is really 'I am'. It is described as the 'Self-
luminous'. That is, that is the only one that is living and
all the other thing is living because of it. It is wrongly
translated into other languages as 'Burning Bush'.
26 Know Thyself
Moses went up the mountain and found a self-luminous

plant, a centre of light and then He talked to that light.
Then He asked Him, "What is your name?" Then He said,
'I am that I am'. Is it that the answer that the Burning Bush
gave? Is it the same answer? In the Old Testament, in
the book of Exodus, is it the same answer or not? Please
tell me if it is the same answer. No, once again go and
read. Go home and read again, it is a little bit different.
If anyone asks you, "What is the name of your God?" Tell
him 'I am that I am'. That is, where ever you go, whoever
asks you, "Who is God?" If you speak of God in third
person, you are speaking of your own impression of God
and not God. If God had told Moses, "My name is I am
that I am" then you know what Moses would have done?
He would have gone to Egypt and when asked 'What is
the name of your God Pharaoh?' he would have answered
'He is that He is'. So, God is careful. He never said, my
name is 'I am that I am'. He said "Tell him that I am that
I am". What does that mean? Everyone should tell him,
tell the other person that what I am feeling as my own
existence feeling that 'I am' existing as 'I am' here, God,
and the remaining, man. This initiation was given there
but unfortunately we live in the 20th centuty therefore we
are dead to the Bible and the Bible is dead to us. Let us
once again be resurrected into the scriptures. So, God said,
"Tell him that I am that I am". So, Moses said, "I am that
I am" he never said, "He is that He is". When you speak
about God that He is God, it is not God, it is your own
voice. It is not God's voice, It is passive voice. God
speaks through you in active voice. So, always whenever
you use the word 'I am' there is a possibility of your touching
the real 'I am' in you. So, it is the key that leads you to
God. That is the only word that leads you to God. And
that is why after so many centuries Jesus said, "I am the
way". But, unfortunately the father and the bishop on
Sunday say, 'He is the way'. He is not the way, "I am the
way". In everyone Christ should be you, not outside
ourselves, on the walls or in the pictures. So, He said, "I
am the way". Unless you speak it through your 'I am', you
the man cannot be resurrected into Him, until then He is
crucified in you. You should live in Him and then He begins
to live in you.
Another prophet said, "Look to Me, I look to you".
Here also, me means not Him but the 'Me' in you. You
should close your eyes and look at Me in you. So, whenever
the Lord speaks, He speaks in the same language. Through
whichever body He speaks, He speaks in the same
unmistakable language. You know who said this, He is
called 'Sai Baba' who lived in the 19th century near Bombay.
He was also one of the incarnations of the Lord. And
another said, "Know that I am looking to you". The
samething. He is called 'Ramana Maharshi in South India.
Lord Krishna said, "Take refuge in Me, the I am of all.
Make a total surrender to Me". So, everytime He comes
down to earth in whichever body He likes, He uses the
same term. In any language the same term is used. That
is why that term is called 'the catch word', that is the
symbolic word used by man to call God and God to call
man. In Sanskrit it is called 'So' meaning 'He', 'Hum' means
'I am'. This is the meaning of the catch word. That is out
of ignorance we say, He, She, It. Whom we call He, there
is only 'I am' in every he or she. With that 'I am' only
28 Know Thyself
everyone is living. So, always this is the catch word. It

is always in singular number. We can't say "We are". As
human bodies and minds we are there but only the
'I am' exists in everyone. Just like in many containers
immersed in a bowl of water, the same water exists. Like
the containers we are there, like the water in the containers
'I am' there. So, it is only in singular number. This is
what is also called 'the scripture'. The scripture never means
a book. Scripture is something about which the books are
written. In the book called 'Secret Doctrine' Madam
Blavatsky calls this 'the Original Scripture' and she also
calls it 'the oldest manuscript'. Manuscript ordinarily means
a book written by human hand. But the significance here
is, the man in you is the script, he writes his own span
of life as a book. That means, the story of the human history
proves the story of God's history because man lives in God
and God lives in man. Blavatsky also says that it is the
only copy of it now in existence. That means it always
exists in singular number. She says, "The book exists in
the cave temples". 'In the deep caves' means innermost
levels of consciousness. If you can understand this as 'I
am', then it is understood that you have known yourself.
Otherwise there are people who identify themselves with
one of these things and call it 'I am'. For example, some
people identify themselves with their intelligence, they call
it 'I am'. Some people identify themselves with their ideals.
Their ideals are temporary whereas they are the permanent
principle, the Lord inside. They live all through their life
believing that they are their own ideals. And in the end
when their ideals are not realised, they die in sorrow.
So, all these things should be set on one side, the 'I
am' which is yourself includes all these things as the mind
of yourself. But the 'I am' is only 'I am' and nothing else.
It is the light which illumines all the other things; it is the
light from which everything comes. For example, in the
empty space there is one awakening in the form of 'I am',
then there is the birth of one solar system. In the morning
you wake up from sleep into this consciousness. The
moment you wake up, you exist as 'I am'. Previously you
were existing but the mind was not existing. Therefore,
the little fellow, mind, cannot know that you are existing.
You are beyond the mind, beyond the senses, beyond the
body, beyond thoughts, beyond philosophy, beyond
religions, beyond concepts. You are yourself. All these
things come out just as your body comes out every moment
from yourself. And again just as you leave off your body
when it is old, all these things go away. The ideas, the
thoughts, religions and philosophies help us in their own
time. They are not false, they are not bad but they are
like the pages in a calendar. The page in the calendar is
not the month but yet it helps you to know the month. The
calendar is not the year yet it helps you to know the details
of the year. When the calendar is broken and torn off,
the year is not gone, it is there. Once again a new calendar
is brought from the printing press. Calendars come and
go, but the year goes on continuously. Similarly, the 'I
am' in everyone of you shines eternally and permanently
whereas the religions and philosophies come and go from
it and into it. And they serve their purpose. When their
purpose is finished, they go into Him and the 'I am' shines.
30 Know Thyself
Millions and millions of fellows with bodies come from

Him, they live in Him, He lives as the Indweller of all these
bodies. And then old age comes. These bodies go into Him.
Like that this earth planet also lives. It becomes old, it goes
into Him. Similar way the Solar system lives in Him, it
becomes old, it goes into Him. Similarly, these galaxies
and millions of Solar systems come and go from Him and
into Him. So, He is called the 'I am'.
Even in the Solar system there is one fellow called
the Solar Existence, He says "I am". And then there is the
planet. Every planet has its own existence called 'I am'.
The planet feels 'I am'. It begins its own evolution. At a
certain stage it becomes a human being, then begins to
feel his own existence and makes his approach into his
own 'I am'. The human birth is allotted for this purpose.
For all those who live on this earth, the human stage of
evolution is the temple to which all the pilgrims gather
because only in the human birth you begin to know yourself.
And through a series of births and deaths you begin to train
yourself, you will gain mastery over your senses and mind,
again you will go into the mistake of intelligence and you
will die, again you will fall in the right line and after some
births and rebirths you will know what compassion is, what
God's love is. When you begin to know it begins to flow
through you. Then the purpose of your evolution is finished.
You will know yourself. You will know the real meaning
of the 'I am' in you.
This sacred part of the story happens in the human
birth. It is for this purpose the human birth is given to living
beings. It is for this purpose the wise people say that it
is a great opportunity. We are expected to utilise the

opportunity, make the best use of it. Know that this is the
training ground, this is the real college and this is the real
university, the temple of learning where we are trained by
nature by the planet earth and by the other planets and the
solar system and by our fellow beings, by the people around
us, by the law of nature, through the properties of matter
and mind, all these things come to our aid. They lead us
on through pain and pleasure towards the required
directions when we begin to feel our real existence. We
begin to gravitate towards our own 'I am'. Then we reach
the highest light, this 'I am' in everyone. The purpose of
evolution on earth is completed. Then we will be living
in human bodies, just as I mentioned yesterday and day
before, not living for ourselves but living for the planet
earth and to do something for others and living beings.
This is what is called 'Knowing Thyself'. And for this
purpose we are given a 'seven fold existence' which I
mentioned yesterday. The first is called Anna or matter,
the second is called Prana or force, the third is called Manas
or mind, the fourth is called Buddhi or will, the fifth is
called Man or Nirvana plane that is though 'I am', the sixth
is called the Planetary 'I am', Para Nirvana plane, that is
the God in man, the seventh is the 'I am' of the Solar system,
Maha Para Niravana plane, the man in God. These are the
seven states that are existing in us and we begin our human
evolution in existing in the first three planes along with
the animals. And the plants exist only in the first two planes
that is matter and force. The minerals exist only in the first
plane.
32 Know Thyself
So, the first plane is the plane of mineral consciousness,

the second is plane of plant consciousness, the third plane
is the animal consciousness where the mind and senses
are separated from the rest. In the plant, mind and senses
are not separated. For example, if you pluck a leaf from
a plant the plant has pain but there is no location to the
pain, the whole plant pains. But in an animal or a human
being if you prick like this, there is a location of pain at
that spot only. It will not spread all over the body. That
is because the brain, the mind and the senses are separated.
That is what we call the animal consciousness. This is
also common to us. Food, drink, sleep, fear and sex are
common to the humans and animals.
Then next comes the fourth plane, that is the plane
of will or buddhi, it makes us different from the animals.
With the capacity of buddhi we will be able to feel our
existence. For the first time we begin to feel that we are
existing. The dog never knows that it exists. It knows
its appetite, it knows its master, it knows its food, it knows
its pain, but it cannot know that it is existing. So, it is
first the human being who begins to know that he exists
and then the whole journey takes place. Gradually we begin
to live in each of these planes. When we live in the first
three planes we are only animals with two legs. We know
only these things and not more than that. Our intelligence
is dedicated to these things and our caution is dedicated
only to these things and we live only for these things. But
gradually we begin to live for something more because
we feel the existence of 'I am' in us. So, in the next plane,
that is the fourth plane, we begin to understand that there
are virtues. They are sympathy, help, cooperation etc. We

begin to practise them but in the beginning we practise
them only for commercial purpose. That is, I behave with
my virtues; I help you because I want your help; I will
be faithful to you because tomorrow you should be faithful
to me. So, we begin to practise virtues only for their
marketing value. So, after some births we begin to feel
the sweetness of these virtues. Then we begin to practise
these virtues for sweetness, not for market value. Then you
are instinctively virtuous. You cannot be otherwise. For
example, if you find a Buddha or a Christ, they cannot
behave otherwise than Buddha or Christ because, they
know the sweetness of it. They know what Love is, and
they know what its taste is. When once you taste the honey
on the table you will never prefer to drink the castor oil.
So, like that, when once you begin to feel what Love is,
your behaviour cannot be otherwise.
So, with that you will go to the fifth and sixth steps.
And in the sixth step you begin to live with others not only
physically but also in 'group consciousness.' That means
you are in Leon, I am in India, he is in America, three of
us are continuously working. We will be together working,
feeling the same thing. When one of us is unhappy, the
other two feel that he is unhappy. When one of us gets
a glorious revelation of a new idea, the two others get the
flash. This is what is called a 'group living'. It is not a living
in a physical group, it is also called 'Soul Consciousness',
it is also called 'Ashram'. Many people think that Ashram
means a hermitage where criminals gather, wives who left
husbands and husbands who left their wives gather.
34 Know Thyself
Master D.K. said, "there are no Ashrams on the

physical plane in the present century, let us all have one
Ashram on the higher plane. If you want to work in the
Ashram you can work, otherwise you can go home". So,
this is the Ashram in the real sense. And from that plane,
the Masters work for us. They are there, who know
themselves. They are always helping us to know ourselves,
producing many wonderful branches of science, like God
science, Yoga, Meditation, etc. Let us take advantages and
let us understand how valuable this human birth is! What
a great and a glorious opportunity this is! And let us feel
their presence. Everyday let us pray that we are taken into
group consciousness of some great men, yet do our own
work. No one should be prepared to leave his own work
and go away somewhere in the name of liberation. It is
not liberation but it is only entanglement. When we run
away from our work, if God proposes liberation to us He
must be a big fool who can be deceived by every fool on
this earth. But He is a wonderful fellow, He is not a fool.
He is not ready to give liberation to those who run away
from their duties. Stay where you are physically, do the
work you are expected to do, differentiate between what
you 'want to do' and what you 'have to do'. Elevate yourself.
Elevate from the first stage to second stage. Then pray for
group consciousness in the presence of those who are
prepared for this, then you know yourself. The rest of the
thing they know because in them and in you, lives the only
one fellow, who says, "I am that I am" and who says, "I
am the way, I am life, I am resurrection." So, know thyself.
Question : I have to know the way that does not stop to
act upon us. Is it during our sleep or...
Ans. : In the beginning, generally they begin to contact

when we are sleeping because that is the only time when
we keep quiet. And when once they are successful in
contacting, we begin to produce thoughts which are only
on right lines. They begin to give us more and more thoughts
in clear and definite terms. They use telepathy wonderfully
upon us, but they keep us in ignorance for a very very long
time until people drop off their peculiar ideas about
telepathy, etc., because it is a great inconvenience for them
if we have our own ideas about telepathy and other things.
Unfortunately, in the twentieth century we have many
people who have written and thrown books upon us on
these subjects. We are often disturbed by these ideas and
it is a little bit difficult for the Master to contact us through
real telepathy. What we have to do is, daily before we go
to sleep, we have to submit ourselves to the unknown
Master. We should not select our own Master because it
is our Master who has to select us. It is the doctor who
knows the patient, the patient can never know the doctor.
So, it is the Master who knows the diciple and the disciple
never knows his Master. If anyone appoints in his mind
his own Master for example, let Master Mourya be my
Master, that means He is our servant, not Master. We are
not giving jobs to our Masters to come to us and help us.
So, no one should select a Master for himself. Everyone
should submit himself to an unknown Master before sleep.
And his daily routine should be purified according to the
values which we have listed up this whole week. Not
because I talked of them but because they are the eternal
teachings and synthesising thoughts that are of a positive
36 Know Thyself
and practical nature that contain the ultimate solutions of

our problems, that can be put into practice in our daily
life and verified. Remember, this is different from what
we call philosophy and theology. Philosophy is to discuss
in clubs and the temples but this is something which can
be called 'the Science of Life, the Art of Living', because
at every step you find it correct. You can put it in practice
and you will be beyond 'want'. Such thoughts will be
reaching your mind. For a long time we feel that we are
independently thinking these thoughts. No problem, the
Masters allow us to think like that because they don't want
the ownership of these thoughts. And gradually the growth
takes place. After some time when you feel that your wants
are limited and when you sincerely begin to feel using value
about money, belongings, ideals- all these things should
have a secondary value and purpose should guide you. For
example, when you are going in the street, if someone is
weak and fainting in the bus, test yourself if you can take
him to hospital or not. Like that every moment the purpose
should decide our duty. Gradually our behaviour and our
speech grow more and more meaningful. And gradually
people begin to gather near you because the Masters are
already working through you. What you speak is valuable
to others. They get a great help through you and what you
do is a great help. Like that you will be working. And
when you feel your personal belongings have no value to
yourself, when you realise that you want only a little number
of things, when name and fame faded from your own mind
when they have no value to you, the Masters begin to make
their appearance clear to you, they will attract you to
themselves. We will know where their university exists,

where our colleagues in this world exist, how they are
getting trained, how we are working as a net work and
then we will know our Master because He reveals Himself
to us, when all the emotionalism from our mind is filtered.
But by that time we discover that we have already been
doing His work 24 hours for the past many decades. His
work is being done through us without our own knowledge
and by the time we know, we are already engrossed in the
work. And then the Masters reveal themselves to us. This
is the only way in which they work through us. In the
beginning we have to offer ourselves, submit ourselves
to the thought or 'readiness to serve', nothing more is
required. The required books come to you directly, required
persons come to you and you will be peculiarly attracted
to places where your work is required. Your effort is not
at all required for your work. Only one thing we have
to keep that is the readiness to work and the readiness to
go anywhere they send us. Beyond this we need not do
anything. This is what I know.
Thank You.
* * *
The Soul and its Path
rothers and sisters who have gathered here, I thank

B you all for the happy presence you have given. I am
expected to speak something about the soul and its path.
The word 'soul' has been used for a very long time. It has
a great history and tradition both in the east and the west.
In the orient, we have this term and in the ancient Indian
scriptures, it is called 'atma'. When we go to the study of
the Indo-Germanic languages where these most modern
researches are in polarity, if you go into the researches
of the polarity, you will understand the word 'atma' and
the word 'adam' in the old Bible and the word 'atom' in
the scientific literature. They all come from the same root
and same tradition of meaning. We see many people
speaking of this word.
People say, 'I have a soul and I meditate upon the soul.'
Some people say that they have seen the light of the soul
and that their eyes are dazzling when they have seen it,
just as when we see the lightning; they experience the light
of ten thousand lightnings. Some people say that they have
seen a soul moving in darkness. When a person goes near
the recently dead or when the persons having very much
attachment to the dead person go in darkness, they
The Soul and its Path 39
sometimes feel that they have seen his soul. They say that
they have seen the soul of the dead person. Like this they
have many methods of using the word 'soul'. Some people
say that they saw the soul going out of the body and were
able to take a photograph of it. Some people show a
photograph also, showing some light above the corpse, just
as you chance some times to see the photograph of the
aura of people. You see some very typical coloured
photographs, the most modern technique of the
photography to see aura around a person. Not only that,
in the occident, I have seen some genuinness of occultism.
I have seen zodiacs with photographs of the aura of the
scorpions, serpents and lizards. Like that they have strange
conceptions about the soul, each conception depending
upon the peculiarity of the person who understands it. But
apart from all these things, there is a scientific way of
understanding what soul is. There is a real understanding
of the soul. Just as a counterfeit coin proves the existence
of a genuine coin, it proves the existence of genuine money.
So also, the many misconceptions prove the existence of
some truth. It is always true with anything. Suppose a person
makes a counterfeit coin without having a genuine coin
like that. What happens? He can deceive no one with that
coin, because there is no such coin existing. So people can
deceive either themselves or others by taking false
representations of true concepts. Unless the true concept
exists, a misconception is not possible. So let us try to
understand from the shrewd scientists and seers, what they
mean by the word 'soul'.
In an island people were meditating a sentence, 'I have
a soul in me', and Saint Paul went to that island. He
40 Overseas Messages - III
corrected them by saying, "Don't meditate I have a soul,

meditate I am a soul and I have a body." Previously they
were meditating, 'I have a soul'. That means they understood
something, some part of themselves as soul. They might
have understood it as the most important of all the parts
in them. But still they understood it as a part of themselves.
Just as when we study anatomy, we can understand that
it is the most important of all parts, yet, we understand
it only as a part of ourselves. Like that they understood
that there was a soul in them. And, for the first time in
the occident, Saint Paul corrected them by saying, "You
should not meditate 'I have a soul', you should meditate
'I am a soul' ".So, this is the first step of a correct
understanding of the soul. Then some people try to
understand by studying the constitution. We have the
physical body having the body system, muscular system
etc. It can be understood through the text books of anatomy.
And no where in this body can we find a part which can
be called soul. Just as we do not find anything like kundalini
in the spinal column or the chakras. So, they denied the
existence of soul, just as they denied the existence of
kundalini and the six chakras. But we ask the same student
of anatomy one question, "Do you find anything like mind
in your anatomic matter". He says no. Then don't you have
mind? Do we find anything like intelligence? No. Then
don't we have intelligence? Do you find anything like love
that can be radiated out from the heart? Suppose a person
says, 'I am full of love'. Immediately let the doctor take
the radiogram of his heart and find where the love is. The
heart is quite absolutely normal, free from love. Then, don't
you have love? Similarly there are 10% of the things which
can be rejected physically in you that can be detected and

observed; the remaining 90% of yourself can never be
detected either at the anatomy theatre or in a radiography
or through any instrument discovered till now or that can
be discovered in the future.
This is because the instrument is discovered by a soul,
the instrument can be used by a soul and the person who
sees the instrument is a soul. Therefore, it is not at all
possible to know anything through an instrument. Only
10% of yourself is detectable by the instruments. Now there
are psychologists who are taking graph of waves and
thought waves. Volumes and volumes of research are being
filed in their almirahs, in their tests, but nothing is the
outcome, because they are studying the changes and the
differences in the mind vibrations and trying to interpret
in the name of psychology and E.S.P, 'extra sensory
perception'. It leads no where. It is like examining the
railway track after the train has gone and trying to determine
if the train is an express or a goods train or a local train.
No doubt, it is a great research. It gives volumes and
volumes, but there is no goal. So, let us try to follow people
who have given us something about the soul.
You know you have a body, and you know that you
have some power which moves your body. Now you are
definite in two things. One is the material body and the
other is the power that is moving your body. They are a
body of matter and a body of force. When you are
understanding these two things, you can be sure that you
have an understanding also, because you are understanding.
So you have a body of matter, you have a body of force
and you have a body of understanding. Now your

commonsense teaches you that you have three bodies. The
first body can be seen through the instruments, the second
body can not be seen through the instruments and the third
body can not at all be seen through the instruments.
Now let us proceed a little bit further. We have a mind
because we understand. The animal has a mind because
it can understand its master and it can return to its master's
house after going into the street. It can recognize the master
different from others. It can feel when it sees food. It has
a love nature and the capacity of mating and child bearing
and trying to protect its own child. So, we are sure of a
mind to the animal also. What is the difference between
your mind and the mind of an animal? You have some other
layers of mind which are not yet developed in the animal.
Just as the flower has the colours and the smell of the petals,
which the bud of the flower can not have. In the bud stage,
there is neither colour nor perfume to the flower. When
it blossoms, there are the colours and there is the perfume.
Just as the difference between the bud and the flower, there
is the difference between your mind and the mind of your
dog. You know food and it knows food, but when you go
to the market and when the untrained dog goes to the
market, when you stand before the cookery, when the dog
stands before the cookery, the food materials are equally
visible to both. The dog directly wants to take, whereas
you know that you have to pay for it, purchase it, make
it your own, get it home, sit at your table and then eat.
There is the difference between the two minds. The finer
layers in your mind are blossomed, because you crossed
the stage of the animal long ago, entered the human

kingdom and have completed thousands of evolutions in
human kingdom. The result is the finer layers in your mind
have blossomed.
One can find the same difference between us and a
more developed human being. There are two doctors. When
we go to the first doctor, he questions you, 'what is the
trouble?' You may say, 'diabetes' or you may say 'insomnia'.
Immediately, he asks you to take examination of all the
parts and come to him with all the reports. Then he sees
the reports. Then he begins to prescribe medicines to you.
The second doctor will observe you, begin to understand
something which you cannot express, why you are diseased,
why your constitution has gone wrong, and asks you about
your domestic history, your vocational life and the
calamities and the crises you have experienced in the past.
He makes a sequence in his mind, comes to an under
standing of how you became like this, then he may prescribe
a medicine or without prescribing a medicine, he may
prescribe a procedure to be followed by you about your
habits and daily routine.
What do you find between the two doctors? It is the
difference of the evolution of the quality of understanding.
The second doctor is definitely more evolved than the first.
The finer layers of his understanding began functioning
in him. He is more aware of all his mental layers, and the
degree of illumination of his mental layers is more than
the degree of illumination of the first doctor. But when
you take the history of the two doctors, they were
classmates, studied in the same medical college, they were
trained by the same group of professors and they were

receiving the same lessons. But the receptivity is different.
The same light is falling upon this glass and this metal
pot. But each receives the light in a different way. Certain
things reflect more than what they receive and certain
substances absorb without reflecting. Like that when our
mechanism is not evolved, our life will be only a matter
of fact. We know only a few things in life. We measure
and understand others only according to those few things
we understand. If the other person is more aware of the
environment, if he is more aware of our difficulties and
troubles, sometimes we can not understand that he is more
aware, because we understand him only according to our
own comprehension. So, there is this difference in evolution
and the development of understanding is different.
The surface of the mechanism of understanding
becomes more and more when we begin to evolve more
and more. So, when we try to take all these points into
consideration and try to understand ourselves, we find that
we have three different bodies in us as we mentioned
previously. The body of matter, the body of force and the
body of mind. In the body of mind, we find many layers
existing. One layer is working through the senses and trying
to know what is there in the environment. It has five
instruments working with it, the five senses, the sense of
seeing, the sense of hearing, the sense of smelling, the sense
of tasting and the sense of touch. The outermost layer of
our mind is receiving impressions from the environment
and understanding the existence of everything around us.
Another layer of mind is ordering parts of our body to do
the required things with the help of the nervous system.

Just as with the help of the telephone wires, we are
telephoning to our agents and doing the business, this
second layer of mind is using the nerve fibers as telephone
wires and telephoning to the parts of the body what they
are to do. When I have some sensation on one hand, the
one mind is reporting to the mind, another mind is receiving
it, another mind is sending orders to the other hand to do
what is needed to the former hand. So, we find easily three
layers of mind.
Another layer makes us understand if you are happy
or unhappy by talking to you or sometimes by seeing the
face; sometimes we can know if you are fatigued or
exhausted or if you are excited or if you are happy and
joyful. All these things are understood by one layer of mind.
Another layer of mind is deciding what is good and what
is bad for us, and whether to do something or refuse to
do something. This layer is called discrimination. This is
another layer. When we use this layer properly, we live
in happiness all through our life. Like this there are
thousands of layers existing in our mind. As you begin to
observe your own mind working in the daily life, you can
be doing your own profession, you can be attending to your
own domestic duties, and you need not stop anything or
deviate from any duty, you need not go to a university
laboratory. You have your own laboratory always coming
with you. You need not pay any fee to any university. Just
begin to observe yourself. You will become aware of these
thousands of layers of mind. Experience and practice make
you perfect in using them. You can observe yourself and
also others and gain a two-fold experience. There are people

who sleep over these layers of mind who do not observe
these layers of mind at all, because they have no taste to
observe, because they have no incentive or desire to
observe. They just allow the mind to function. They do
their routine duties, they earn money, they purchase their
own land, they construct their own house, they lay their
own eggs in the form of children, they need sleep and finally
die.
But there are some people who take interest in
observing them. It is a matter of a degree of evolution once
again and understand that no one of these layers is yourself.
These three bodies are your instruments, the material body,
the body of force and the body of mind. They are your
instruments with which you are expected to work. No one
of these parts is yourself. You are different from these parts.
You are existing in these parts, just as the snail exists in
the shell. It is very easy to understand that shell is not the
snail in it.
After knowing, you will understand that you are
existing separate from all this. And from you, all these parts
are coming out and building around you, just as we have
the hair from us growing daily, just as our moustaches and
beard growing from us daily. No fool will understand that
he is his moustache or his beard, but at the same time the
moustache or the beard comes from himself, but it is not
himself. He can shave it, yet he will never die. Similarly
no one of these three layers is ourselves. These are shaved
at every death, yet we are not dying. But many of us do
not understand that we are not dying. We very sincerely
believe that we die. That is why the fear of death exists,

though it is most unscientific and false. When we properly
understand the mechanism and ourselves existing in the
mechanism, we will know that we are not dying in the end.
We understand that we are leaving the body. Since we have
no evidence we fear, because no one who died told us that
he is living. That is why we fear. But the pity is he has
no common language to speak with us, because we are
trained to speak only through the tongue. We are trained
to listen only through the ear. When these things are taken
away, we are not trained to understand things. That is the
reason why we fear death. But those who are trained in
all these instruments and who experience their own
existence in the body as different from all these parts, they
will not only understand but also experience that they are
existing, and from them all these layers of the human
constitution are coming out and going away, again coming,
again going according to the law of evolution for a certain
purpose of giving us experience. It is nature that is
providing us with all these instruments.
So, if we can really understand that we are existing
separately from all these levels, when this experience
becomes familiar with us by living that life 10 years or
15 years or 20 years, then we will understand that we are
the soul. The soul can not be understood by us at this stage
properly, because it is ourselves. The eye can see if there
is anything on the table, but the eye can not see what is
there in the eye. The ear can hear something outside, but
it can not hear itself. The nose can know the smell of
something else, but you can not know the smell of your
nose. Like that, unless there is a specific trait, you can not
know the soul. You can never understand soul as something
different from yourself. But yet we have some methods
to understand to some extent. We want certain angles of
understanding in order to have a correct idea that soul is
existing in the name of us.
Now try to answer to yourself what is it that you are
yourself? What part of you that you are calling I am. We
say 'I am coming. I am going.' If there is water here, he
says, 'There is water and I am here'. If anyone asks me,
'Are you water? I say 'I am not water. Water is there and
I am here'. But suppose I take some water and drink it and
then I talk to you, 'I am going.' But I should say that I
and water are going. Instead I say 'I am going'. I should
precisely define to you that I am going home with my watch,
with my shirt, with my underwear, with my shoes and my
shoe laces and with my spectacles. Then only it is correct.
But with all these things we say, 'I am going'. That is how
we generally use the word. Therefore let us try to take one
by one and put it on a table, try to locate what I am. First
of all I take out the wrist watch and suppose I take the
shirt here and one by one I will take away in the bathroom,
we will stand there and I say, 'I am'. Question yourself,
Is it the skin which we call 'I am' or the bones or the blood
or the nerves? Ask every department of anatomy which
part of the body is yourself. No part is yourself. Then come
to the mind and ask, Is it myself?' Then the answer is, it
is my mind. Therefore it is not myself. And about the heart,
'Am I the heart?' It is not because it is my heart. Whatever
you can say this is mine, you can not say that it is yourself.
Can I say I am this wrist watch? No, because this is mine.

I possess this. Therefore this is not myself. So also all the
layers of my anatomy, all the layers of my force in the force
centers in me, all the layers of my mind, they are mine.
Therefore they are not myself. What is there existing
inside? If you properly understand, there is nothing but
some space inside the part. Yet you are speaking I am.
Now you come to the eye. What is it that is seeing?
Is it the eyeball or the black part or the brown part? Go
to the centre. You will find space and in it the fabric of
the whole eye is prepared. Similarly there is the space where
you stand. In the space you are standing. There is the fabric
of your constitution. Now take a third example, a generator
of electricity, a dynamo and an electro motor. It has many
parts in it. What part of it is electricity? You have the
armature. It is only an iron piece and no electricity. You
have the magnet, it is not electricity. You have the coiled
wire, it is not electricity. No part of it is electricity. When
you assemble them in a proper manner, there is something
going on in all the parts, you call it electricity. If there
is nothing in it, how can you call it electricity? You have
the light. You have the fans. You have the radio and the
telephone. You use electricity for all the functions. But
if you ask the architect or engineer of electricity, 'what is
electricity?', if you ask him to show you a sample of a piece
of electricity, he has nothing to show you except to prove
the existence of electricity. If we still doubt and argue that
there is no electricity, there are only parts of it, then he
will pull a wire, he will cut it and he will ask us to touch
it. Then we will understand that there is electricity, because
we receive a shock. Something works like this. We then

say that there is something. Then the professor of electricity
questions you, 'What is it that you found? You will say,
'I have a shock.' Then he will say, 'show me a piece of
shock.' Then you have nothing to show. But if the professor
denies that it is false that you have a shock, you will
understand that it is true that you have received the shock.
Now try to understand what is electricity, try to understand
what is seeing in the eye, try to understand what is it that
you are calling 'I am' in your heart. You have known weight
and volume. Which part of this is the 'I am' in you? You
cannot show. But you will understand that you are existing,
therefore all the parts are existing. When you do not exist,
the parts go away into their sources. The minerals in the
body of a corpse will return to the minerals of the earth,
the water in the body goes to the water of the earth, the
heat in the body goes into the heat of the atmosphere, the
air and gases in the body escape into the air out side and
the space of the body remains the same. Even when there
is the body, the body is in the space and the body cannot
escape space wherever it goes.
Understand that the meaning of the word 'I am' is the
space in which you are existing. You may not believe at
first, but when you begin to try to understand, there is no
alternative except you should believe it that the space in
your body is speaking, is listening, is breathing. It is
understanding, it is behaving, it is living, and to do all these
things it wants to manifest itself. It has to externalize itself.
To do this it wants a machine, it wants a generator and
your body is the generator. Unless you understand this
properly, you cannot comprise with any truth about this

existence. You are not convinced of any other alternative
except this. Think for yourself and try to understand the
idea behind it wherefrom the electricity is coming into the
generator. Understand that it is from the space. The
generator is contrived to extract electricity from the space
and utilize that electricity before it returns to space once
again. Except this answer, you have no other answer at
all. The science is coming to this understanding, gradually
and slowly. Science does not mean modern science only,
because modern man is not yet completely scientific. If
he is completely scientific, he cannot create war with the
knowledge of science. Because the present mankind is
still undeveloped and because we have some animal nature
in us still left, we are preparing for a third world war with
the scientific knowledge we have. That itself proves that
our knowledge of science is not correct and we are not
yet fit to receive the correct scientific knowledge. We
should not be ashamed of accepting this totally, because
we cannot deny this fact. Though we try to deceive
ourselves by thinking that ours is the most modern age
where we have advanced into the moon and we are going
to advance into the other planets and the Sun, we should
not forget that our advancement on this earth is not
completed. Because we are not perfect in doing our duties
on this earth to our relatives and brothers and the
brotherhood of humanity and because we are not yet fit
to do it properly, we are trying to avoid it, we are trying
to escape from it and run to the Moon, the Jupiter and the
Stars. If we grow really fit in our understanding, if we
have a real fitness of receiving the scientific thought, first
of all we would have done our duty on this earth. Let

us not escape and run away into the other planets by making
a criminal expenditure of millions and millions of dollars
to produce the rockets which throw us into other planets,
because it is the money of the people with which we are
playing in the name of the advancement of the science
which is nothing but animalism and cannibalism.
Now let us try to stand on earth once again and
understand that electricity is drawn from space and we are
drawn as man into our constitution with the help of this
instrument which we call the body from the space in which
we live. So, calmly understand that we are the space. When
we are best, when we are active, we are our body, mind,
senses etc., Every moment we are travilling into this
instrument and we are speaking and behaving. It is enough
if we remember that we are the space in this mechanism.
This space is existing in everyone of us and therefore it
is called the spirit. It is the meaning of God in a scientific
sense. In between the space and the mechanism of your
body, there is a passage, there is a communication medium
and that communication medium is called soul.
So, what is there between yourself and the space in
you? What is there between your body and the space in
you? The space in you is the 'I am' in you. The body,
mind, intelligence and senses are your parts coming out
of yourself. What is there between electricity and the
generator? There is the revolving wheel. There is
something revolving and that revolving wheel is a metallic
part. What is it that is there between the space and your
constitution? It is what we call soul. Now try to understand
how it exists. We say this is a hall. If I say this hall is

true because it is existing here, do you accept it or not?
It is simple that we have to accept that this hall is existing
here. If I say that this hall has much space in it, the hall
is very convenient and it is very spacious. But understand
the relationship between the space and this hall. Which
part of the hall can you call hall? Is it the bricks? Is it
the ceiling? Is it the space? It is not true that space is
in the hall, because there had been space before this hall
was constructed. Hall is constructed in space and space
is not constructed in the hall. Space is permanent and hall
is periodical. That is, from century to century, it is
constructed, used and removed to construct a better hall.
So, halls come and go, but space exists.
What is the difference between the space in the hall
and space in the street? The space in the hall is understood
as hall. This understanding is what we call the soul of
the hall. It is that which makes all the parts fit into one
part. What is it that we call beauty in a person. If you
say she is beautiful? Where does the beauty exist? Is it
in the biological kingdom of the body? Is it in the quality
of the cells or protoplasm? Where does it exist? It does
not exist in any part. It is the base in which all the parts
exist. It is this base that is understood as beauty. When
there are two persons, when one person calls the other
beautiful, it is the basis of unity, the totality which he calls
beauty and in it all the parts exist.
If you say this is a flower, what part of it is the flower?
No part of it can be called a flower. If you take away
the petals and all the parts separately and once again arrange
with a string, can you call it a flower? You cannot. You

can call it only parts of the flower put together. Take this
flower in one hand and take another flower in another hand.
What is the difference between the two? In the second
one, the flower is the oneness in which all the others are
only parts. But in the first one, you have put together many
items. In the real flower, the flower is one and the plurality
is parts. The flower is the basis of all the unity. The basis
exists at first and the parts are prepared later, that is what
you call the bud, the blossom and the flower.
If you see a leaf, you find many hundreds, of parts
and beams and small beams in it, the leaf is the base of
it. Leaf exists before the parts exist and the parts are
prepared in the leaf. Similarly, when you are called a human
being, you exist as the basis at first and in you all the parts
are prepared. To prepare this, the mechanism is what you
call the mother's womb. Through the mechanism and the
function of the mother's womb, all the parts of your body
are prepared in nine months. But you exist at first as a
person without a mind, without a body and without any
part. And taking you as the base, all the parts are prepared
by the various intelligences which we call the Devas. The
Devas prepare only according to the model. For example,
in the womb of a human being, no dog is prepared, only
a human being's body is prepared. So, there is no mistake
in preparing you. How can you understand that the same
type of mechanism is prepared in the mother's womb?
There should be the original model long before the body
exists. If a person prepared a bottle like this in the
laboratory this bottle must have existed in his mind long
before he prepared its physical form. Unless he has the
bottle in his mind, he cannot make a bottle outside. Unless

the architect of this building has a blue print of the building
which he is going to construct, it is not at all possible to
prepare this building.
Suppose the architect has no idea of the building in
his mind. He asks some of his masons to go on constructing
walls and there may be a house as a result. It is not possible.
He should have a house at first in his mind and according
to the house in the mind, he makes a plan. So the plan
is externalized. The building in his mind was existing
before the building is called the building on the creative
plane, that means, the architect created the building. What
we do afterwards to construct a building is only
construction, not creation. So, first there will be creation
and there will be construction which is nothing but a
duplicate of creation, which is nothing but a carbon copy
of the invoice. So, keep the carbon copy there, take the
original to you. Understand the building in the mind as
the original. Similarly, all the Devas that are working in
the womb of your mother, have your body in their mind.
According to your body in their mind, they have prepared
your body in your mother's womb.
Now, you can understand what soul means. It is the
passage between the space in your body which is near to
yourself and all the other parts of your constitution. There
are all the parts of your constitution and there is what you
call the space existing in it. In between, there is the creation,
the creative activity. That person who is creative is nothing
but yourself. The first layer of the space in you, is the
soul.
The next layer is the body of matter. So, once again

there is the space in you and there is your body in space.
In between you are there as soul. The space in you is
existing as spirit. It is not yourself but it is all. In everyone
of us it is there. And the real scientists of space, who existed
in the ancient days, called that space in you as Spirit. And
since it is there in everyone of us, they called it God and
the next layer is Soul. How does the soul exist? How
are we to catch it? How are we to understand it? If at
all we know how to catch it, we try to catch it and use
it according to our own will and understanding as a faithful
servant of ours, just as we have caught electricity and used
it according to our own understanding. So how to catch
this soul? There is a method. It is nothing but the method
how to catch yourself. The method is nothing but the
practice of the Eight-fold Yoga of Pathanjali. We can't
use the word yoga without the word Pathanjali in the
occident, because the word yoga is used for many
nonsensical things in the occident now-a-days. If I stand
on my head, I call it yoga. If I breathe out for two hours,
I call it yoga. If I drink milk or water with my nose instead
of with my mouth, I call it yoga. Instead of water, If I
make any exposition of drinking nitric acid or sulphuric
acid, I call it yoga. People do ten or fifteen asanas every
day and they say I am doing yoga. This is the fate of the
word yoga in the new occident now-a-days.
So, let us not use the word yoga independently, because
the word means anything between heaven and earth. So
let us be careful in using it precisely. The word yoga is
correct and scientific and precise only when you use it
according to Pathanjali. So, the yoga of Pathanjali makes

you know the soul, makes you know the self. You can
not use the soul because it is yourself, but you can live
as a soul, instead of living as a body, instead of living as
your eyes while seeing or your tongue while eating or like
your sole under your boot when you are wearing your boot.
Suppose we purchase very costly shoes and we preserve
them very carefully even without using to the feet. Suppose
we use old shoes to the feet and worship the new shoes
because they are very costly, suppose we have placed it
there, suppose they are stolen, what happens? We feel that
our soul is stolen. Unless we live like that, we live as
ourselves, that is the soul. You can live a life of soul. Then
what happens? Instead of living like the space in the hall,
you can live as the hall in the space. Then we can know
the door ways from one hall to the other hall when you
experience that your body is in yourself and you are not
in your body, when you experience that you are also above
and beyond your body. In fact, you are existing above and
beyond your body, you are bigger than your body. In your
middle, there is this machine which you call your body
just as a whirlpool exists in a river. Can the river understand
that it is in the midst of the whirlpool? No, whirl pool
is a part of the river. Similarly your body along with
constitution is part of yourself. You will understand that
your body is existing in you, suspended in you, every
moment it is being prepared, every moment the cells are
being prepared by using the food you eat and the water
you drink and the air you breathe in and the sun's rays you
receive and the many energies from the atmosphere. These
things are used every moment and your body is prepared
every moment and made to exist like a soup bubble played

by a boy with the soap. So, there are millions and millions
of parts which are making your body, just like there are
many people who construct the hall. But, just as before
the hall is constructed, it is there in the mind of the architect,
every minute and every moment you are existing and in
you this body is being constructed. Every moment the cells
are being produced and destroyed to make the equilibrium,
to make the body float on your surface. This is what is
called soul.
And when you begin to live soul life, you will
experience soul experience. The light we see will be the
soul light. The sound you hear will be the soul sound and
the humanity in which you live will be soul humanity. What
is the difference? Before you realized soul consciousness,
you understand that you are existing in your body and
everyone is existing in his body, just as the water is existing
in every jar. But when once you get the experience of
soul life, you are not existing in your body. But all these
bodies are existing and floating in One Soul, though
everyone is having himself in the world. Suppose a
thousand jars like this are taken to the river and immersed
in the river, filled with water and left into the river carefully
without breaking it, then it is true that each bottle has water
in it or is it true that bottles are in water? Both are true.
Bottles are in the water, but every bottle has water in it.
Similarly to the one who has experienced soul life, bodies
are in the soul, everyone is a soul in the body. This is
the thing you experience and your experience will be what
we call the love in its true sense. Love does not mean
possessive nature, but nature to offer. If I love too much

and find that you have a better friend than myself, if I find
that he has more affection towards you and if you like him
more than you like me, then I begin to beat with jealousy.
Still we call it love, because we are shameless. We should
never call it love. It is opposite of love. It is called
possessive nature. When I try to possess you, I say I love
you, but when you love some other person, I begin to hate
you. If my attitude towards you is love, I can not hate
you, but the next moment I am willing to hate you. So,
it is the opposite of love and it is not at all love. It is
only the polarity of animal magnetism which we call
wrongly love.
But real love exists with those who live soul life. That
is, if I love you, if you love another person better and if
you feel inconvenient with me, then I will provide you with
the presence of the other friend and I will be away from
you because you feel inconvenient with my presence. That
is what is called real love. If I want that you should be
happy, that is real love. But if I want to own you or possess
you, that is animal magnetism which we wrongly call love.
It causes sorrow, jealousy and misery. So, from our wrong
concept of love, we step into the real kingdom of love and
then only we understand the sentence of the Christ when
he said, 'love thy neighbour as thyself.'
That is what is meant by love. That life is called group
living. Group living means not living in a group like the
political fellows in the name of parties and groups. It is
different and it is called groupism. But group life is quite
different. Group life means, one person is living and all
the bodies are floating in the one person. Instead of a person

living in a body like a prisoner, bodies are living in person.
That is what we call soul life. And when you are in your
house, when I am in my house twenty five thousand
kilometers away in India, when you think of me
automatically I will think of you, just as a radio tuned to
the radio station or a TV set tuned to the TV station, receives
the programs at the same moment when they are transmitted
in the station; because in the soul life, you will live in me
and I will live in you. Like that the Masters and the disciples
live in each other. That is the reason why the Masters who
live in the Himalayan valleys could dictate a book of two
big volumes to one of their disciples who was living in
England or America. This is what is called soul, soul life
and the power of the soul life. It is wrong to think that
the soul has many powers like the powers of black magic.
The soul has only one power, that is, the power of love.
It includes everything and it never desires any other power.
Beyond this, it is not possible to explain about the soul.
Beyond this, it is for us to practise soul life according to
the yoga of Pathanjali and experience that taste of the soul
life and then live as soul instead of living as personality
or intelligence or mind or emotion or body. Thank you all.
Que : I think, the Animals, Humans and Devas are classified
according to their soul qualities. Is it correct?
Ans : Exactly, but according to the degree of development
of the mechanism, the manifestation of the soul qualities
also will be lesser or greater. Just as according to the
efficiency of the generator of electricity, the kilowatts of
electricity differ. Similarly the animals manifest soul less
than what the human beings manifest. But the science of

the scriptures says that from atom to the solar system every
being is a soul. So, animals are also souls. Three categories
of souls are described. One is animal soul in which Animal
kingdom lives and the other is divine soul in which the
Deva kingdom works and a combination of these two makes
the human soul. That is why until some degree of evolution,
the human being has animal qualities like strong likes and
dislikes and fighting nature and war-mongering. And after
that he goes into the divine qualities working with the exact
possession of the Deva kingdom. He joins the quality of
the Deva kingdom after certain amount of evolution. So,
man is the meeting place. That is how they classify.
Question : What is an etheric body ?
Ans : The etheric body is one of the layers of our instrument
where soul is yourself.
Thank You.
* * *
The Evolution of
Consciousness of Man
thank you all for the happy presence you have given
I me this afternoon and I thank our hostess who has
provided us this opportunity. Today, I am asked to speak
about 'the Evolution of Consciousness.' It is an all-
engrossing subject and we are conscious of the subject all
through our life, because we come to understand that we
have a consciousness only after we have come to the human
kingdom from the animal kingdom. Animals are also
conscious of their own process of living, just as the plants
also have their own consciousness which makes them feel
the presence of the sunshine and the presence of day and
night, water and air, heat and cold. All these things are
experienced by plants, animals and human beings.
There are two differences in the experience. The human
experiene knows the names of these experiences; the plants
and the animals do not know the names of the experiences
but the experience is the same. When we are in the Sun,
we use the word Sun. When the plant is in the Sun, it feels
that it is in the Sun, but it does not use the word 'Sun'
because it does not know English. But a person who speaks
French and who doesn't know Engish can also not use the
word 'Sun', just as the plant can't use it. We have, each
The Evolution of Consciousness of Man 63
of us, our own language to use the word 'Sun', but the word
doesn't at all indicate 'Sun'. It only recollects our usage
of the word.
When there is no Sun at all in the winter night, when
there is snow everywhere, if you sit down outside on the
road in the open air and loudly cry, "Sun, Sun, Sun", you
can't make your atmosphere warm. Therefore, what we
call 'Sun' has nothing to do with the word 'Sun'. When
we understand this, we find no difference between the
consciousness of the Sun and of the plants, animals and
of human beings. Sometimes, we may deceive ourselves
that we know a little more by using the word 'Sun' but
very soon we come to understand that it is not true.
If a little sugar is placed on your tongue and a little
sugar is placed on the tongue of a little boy, the experience
is the same. You know the word 'sugar'. The boy doesn't
know the word 'sugar' but both of you know sugar equally.
Suppose there is another person who was very carefully
trained from his childhood not to taste any sugar at all and
he was educated and made a post-graduate in sugar
technology, he knows all the formulae of sugar, all the
chemical actions and interactions that take place when sugar
is being prepared. He knows the name of sugarcane and
beetroot, and he can teach you how to prepare sugar. He
knows all the literature in the world about sugar and he
can prepare sugar and supply. Can you say he knows sugar?
He knows about sugar but he doesn't know sugar. That
is why he is not conscious of sugar. He has the concept
of the name sugar, but the consciousness of sugar is totally
absent in him. Whereas the little boy who hears the sound
of his mother tackling the tin of sugar, runs into the kitchen
immediately, because he is conscious of sugar. He doesn't
know the name of sugar. In such a way, every bit of the
biological kingdom knows everything.
The experience is the same to the plants, the animals
and the humans. But the one difference is the human beings
know that they have consciousness, that is, they are
conscious of their consciousness. Whereas the plants and
the animals are not conscious of their consciousness. They
have an experience of consciousness, but they are not
conscious that they have a consciousness. That is the major
difference between the humans and the other living beings.
Even the human being also is conscious that he has a
consciousness, only when he is in the awakened conscious-
ness. When he is sleeping, he is not conscious that he has
a consciousness, because he has no consciousness at all.
So, we can understand how much the human being knows
about consciousness. He knows about 5% of the real
consciousness, which is working in him. With that 5%
of consciousness, he learns things through education, he
gets his diplomas and degrees in the university, understands
the competition in the world and beats out all others to
get a job for himself. He can go to the market and purchase
good legumes for a lesser cost and he can understand the
people around himself, and he can protect himself from
being deceived by others and sometimes he can deceive
others.
All the things he does only with the 5% of conscious-
ness he has. Still there is 95% of the consciousness of which
the human being is not conscious. Now let us consider how
this 5% of consciousness becomes conscious to the human

being. There is the increase in the degree of illumination
of consciousness as the person progresses in evolution
through the kingdoms of the mineral, the plant and the
animal, and enters into the human kingdom. In the mineral
kingdom, the 5% consciousness is in a state of sleep. In
the plant kingdom that 5% is in a state of dream. animal
that 5% is in a state of awakening. In the human kingdom
it comes to a state of self-consciousness, that is, knowing
for the first time that he has a consciousness. These are
the four stages of the evolution of consciousness, described
by the wise men in the scriptures. I repeat once again. In
the mineral kingdom, the consciousness sleeps. In the plant
kingdom, it dreams. In the animal kingdom, it awakens.
And in the human kingdom, it becomes self-conscious.
These are the four broad and rough markings of the
evolution of consciousness. But each of the four parts has
many sub-divisions and many layers of awakening. But
at present, we are concerned only with the evolution of
human consciousness, because we are human beings.
Our immediate duty is to become more conscious of
our consciousness, and also to become conscious of a right
unit of our consciousness. If we say that consciousness
is sleeping in the mineral kingdom, that does not mean
the mineral kingdom has no consciousness. Suppose we
are sleeping, does that mean that we don't have conscious-
ness? That only means the 5% of consciousness, which
we know, is absent. All the other 95% of the layers of
consciousness has no state of sleep and this 5% of conscious-
ness only requires a state a sleep, because it is your mind
and your senses that require sleep, and because your body
requires some repose. Unless the mind is made
unconscious, it can never allow the body to repose, because
by nature the conscious mind is such an idiot. It doesn't
take rest for itself and it doesn't allow the physical matter
of the body to take rest because it is always engaged in doing
something, let it be physical or mental or vocal. When we
are in the awakened state, we can't take rest mentally, because
the mind doesn't stop thinking. If we ask the mind to stop
thinking, it begins to think about stopping of thinking, but
it can't stop thinking. If you suggest that there should be
some rest, then the mind begins to think of the rest. Like
that the 5% consciousness, we have, is a perfect idiot in
understanding things correctly. It is enough for our education
and our livelihood and for making ourselves rich. But for
the necessary things it is not enough.
You can ask me what the necessary things are. When
we are rich, we want to have good houses and good food
and every thing good we want. What is there which is
necessary, different from all these things?
The truth is, these are not the necessary things, but
a few of them are necessary only as far as the physical
body is concerned. And no one of these things is necessary
for yourself, but we are in the habit of identifying ourselves
with the physical body. And whatever is needed by the
physical body, whatever is necessary for the physical body,
is wrongly understood as our necessity. For example, when
the mouth tastes we think we taste. When the stomach
is taking food, we think we are taking. All this
misunderstanding is because of the force of habit. So, if
we consider the necessary things, they don't include all the

things that we have in our daily life. The 5% consciousness
is enough to look after all the necessary and the unnecessary
things of our daily life. The other 95 layers of consciousness
are intended only for the really necessary things. Suppose
while we are sleeping, is it not necessary that a conscious-
ness should conduct our respiration? What happens when
respiration stops the moment we sleep? The government
should have trucks or lorries always going round the streets
to take the bodies of those who have slept, take them away
and bury them because the moment we go into sleep, the
respiration will be stopped and our bodies are to be
removed. We will not wake up once again from sleep. Then
do you know what we do? We try to discover medicines
not to sleep. And all through the night we go on discussing
with each other, in order not to sleep. And I will ask you
to see that I don't sleep, and you will ask me to see that
you do not sleep, because sleep is death. This clearly proves
that our respiration needs another layer of consciousness
to protect the lungs from stopping and to see that the lungs
are respiring while we are sleeping. Another layer is
required to see that the heart is functioning even while we
are sleeping. These two layers of consciousness, which are
different from the 5% of the layers we know, are working
even while we are awakened in the 5% consciousness.
While we are awakened, we are not conscious of our
respiration at all, because we think we have more important
things to do. We aren't conscious of the heart-beat at all,
because we have more important things - our business,
our job, our wife and our love. So, they are more important
than our respiration and heart-beat. Therefore, we are not
conscious at all of our respiration and heart-beat. We are

conscious of the so called more important things. This is
the second proof of the idiotic nature of our 5% conscious-
ness.
A third layer of consciousness is, to see that we breathe
in only oxygen and breathe out only carbon-di-oxide,
because it knows that we don't know chemistry from our
childhood. So, we require a separate consciousness - a
chemistry consciousness which makes us take in only
oxygen and give out only carbon-dioxide. Suppose, by
mistake, we breathe out oxygen and by mistake we breathe
in carbon-dioxide, within one respiration we get choked
and we die. So, one separate layer of consciousness is
required and it should be knowing chemistry perfectly. So,
it knows the chemistry of the blood and production of
our blood from our food. It knows the chemistry of our
bones and gathers all the calcium and phosphorus from
the food we eat and makes chemical experiments to
construct our bones. If you go on counting like this, you
will find that atleast 45 layers of consciousness are there
in us, to see that the tissues in our body are constructed
and to see that we are not dead when we are sleeping. So,
the 5% and the 45% put together become 50% of the
consciousness about which the human being is not
conscious at all. Sometimes we are not conscious of even
the 5% of the consciousness we have. For example, when
we are thinking seriously about something, we do not
remember that we are thinking, because we are engaged
in thinking. That is a third group of the idiot nature of
the 5% consciousness. So, by consciousness, we should
not mean only the consciousness we know. We have four

different states of consciousness. One is, what we know
during daytime. It can be called 'the Objective
Consciousness.' The second is, what we call sleep and what
we donot know at all, because we don't know what sleep
is till now, because we are sleeping when there is sleep
with us. Therefore we can't know what sleep is. Only when
we wake up from sleep, then we can understand that
previously we were sleeping, but there is no one on this
earth who knows what sleep is. Suppose we try to conduct
some experiments to know what sleep is. We calmly lie
down on the bed and try to understand what sleep is. By
the time when it comes to us, we will be ready to receive
sleep. When it comes to us we forget to understand what
it is, because we are already sleeping. Next morning we
wake up and say, "Today let us try to experiment once
again". We may experiment all through our life and
strangely some day we die, but we cannot know what sleep
is through this method.
But a consciousness is there in us which keeps our
lungs respiring, which keeps our heart circulating the blood,
which keeps the digestive system active in getting the food
digested. Suppose the digestive system also wants to sleep
when we are sleeping; by next morning our stomach will
be a corpse and the doctor has to cut the stomach and throw
it off. So, every organ has its own consciousness of working
and all these layers are working in us. All the mineral
kingdom is there in our body also. And the mineral
consciousness is sleeping in us. The properties of minerals
have a consciousness and it is awakening in us and similarly
the minerals of our earth also. Unless the mineral

consciousness is awakened in the minerals, the minerals
cannot have their properties; the sugar cannot be sweet
to our tongue and the salt cannot be saline to our tongue.
The sweetness of sugar is the sweet consciousness of the
minerals in the sugar and the saline taste of the salt is the
saline consciousness of the minerals in the salt. No one
of these layers of consciousness has any sleep. They do
not require any sleep, because they belong to the
intelligences of a living being. They are called the
intelligences of the Deva Kingdom. In Sanskrit, they are
called Devas. In the Bible they are called the Angels and
Arch-Angels at the Altar of God. But we have our fantastic
ideas about the Angels in the Bible, apart from the ideas
given by the authors of the Bible, because we do not know
the science of the Bible. We know the Bible, only as
Christians. We don't know the Bible according to the
authors who have given it to us. The intelligences of nature
are known to the ancient scientists and they know that there
are Angels and Arch-angels working in the kingdom of
God. They govern the properties of matter and so they
govern the properties of the minerals also. They protect
the chemical reactions in the minerals and they also protect
the awakening of the minerals into the plant kingdom. Then
a group of Arch-angels descends from the rays of the Sun.
That group gathers an army of Angels, which we call the
atoms of Chlorine.
Since the modern chemistry scientist does not know
the Angels and Arch-angels, he thinks that the atoms are
unconscious beings, having no intelligence at all, because
the intelligence of the 20th century scientist is very poor.

It does not have the intelligence which is there with the
authors of the Scriptures. So, we think that they are the
Atoms of Chlorine, but in fact they are a group of Angels
whom we do not know and whom we can call only atoms
of Chlorine. They assume the green colour and they form
one of the seven groups of the Angels who come down
from the Sun's rays. They come down to help the mineral
kingdom, to combine in the proper forms and to awaken
into the plant kingdom. They stay with the plant in the form
of what we call the green colour in the plants, which we
call chlorophyll and we do not know them. Therefore,
we call them chlorophyll. They continuously receive the
Sun's rays for the plant. They invite the Arch-angels of
water from the roots of the plant and the Arch-angels of
air from the atmosphere. They make combinations to
prepare the food, cooked for the plant. Similarly they help
the plant kingdom to awaken into the animal kingdom when
the animals begin to eat the plants. And they also help the
animal kingdom to awaken into the human kingdom, when
the human animal begins to eat the minerals, the plants
and the animals totally, that is, when the human animal
begins to eat all the three kingdoms. The plants eat only
minerals, animals eat only plants and some animals eat
animals. But the human being eats minerals, plants and
animals. He is like the son-in-law of the creation of this
Earth. He has all the privileges. Of course, he has also
responsibilities but at first he cannot understand, because
he is conscious of only 5% of his consciousness. So, we
have in our fleet all the consciousness of the Arch-angels
called Devas working in the body to keep us living by

protecting our respiration, circulation and heartbeat. So,
we have the sleep state of consciousness, where the 95%
of consciousness is awakened and the 5% of consciousness,
which we know is absent there. That is what we call the
consciousness of sleep. Then we have the consciousness
of dream.
So, we know roughly three stages of our consciousness;
sleep, dream, and awakened states. There is a fourth
consciousness into which we are expected to evolve. The
fourth consciousness is what is called the fourth way or
the fourth state by the seers. After sometime we are
expected to get our awakening into that fourth
consciousness. We come to know of it after we have some
discussion about the dream consciousness. The
psychologist is trying very hard to tell us what dreams are
and he is filling up thousands and thousands of pages in
the books of dream psychology. Sigmund Freud has written
thousands of pages. His disciples have written many
thousands of pages. His rivals and his enemies have written
many more thousands. The greatness of these books is,
that after reading all these thousands of pages about dreams,
we know only as much as we knew before reading these
pages. This is because it is only a description of dreams
and a discussion about the description. We have nothing
to learn from them except wasting our time, because there
is no point which we can utilize in any field of action,
after reading these thousands and thousands of pages of
psychologists.
But when we go to the Scriptures, we will understand

what real psychology is, and we can imagine how the 21st
century science of psychology will develop. When you
are sleeping you get a dream and in your dream you will
see many people. The scriptures question us, with what
material these people in the dream are made up of. Of
course, the psychologist has had no intelligence to make
a question like this, till today. Of course, tomorrow he will
grow intelligent to make this question, because this question
contains the answer. The scriptures first question you if
you know the material with which your body is made. You
know the solids, liquids and gases in your body and you
know the matter, force and consciousness in your body.
But, do you know with what material the bodies are made
in dreams? We have no answer, because if we say that
it is with our consciousness or mind, we have to accept
that we have a mind in sleep. So, the psychologist was
forced to accept that there is a mind in sleep. And he has
very recently begun to call it sub-consciousness. Before
78 years, there was no sub-consciousness to the
psychologist at all. He never accepted that there was a
sub-conscious mind, because the psychologist was not even
sub-conscious and even now we know as much as we knew
previously about the sub-conscious. But let us imagine
what happens in dreams. Some-times you see, in a dream,
a big feast going on in the street and thousands of people
going in the street. With what material are these thousands
of people made up of? Where do they exist while your
dream is going on? How much volume of space does it
require for them to stand? Then we are forced to think
that there is a mental space, which is different from physical
space. But till now the psychologists have not come to

a stage to accept this even we suggest this to them.
Just as there is light which we see with our eye, there
is a light called mental light, which is different from the
optical light we know. That is the original light, and the
optic light we see is only a vibration and a reflection of
that original light. Similarly the sound we hear with our
ears is only a resounding of the original sound, a vibration
of the original sound, which we can call the mental sound.
Similarly we have a mental smell, a mental taste, a mental
volume and all the mental dimensions; we have the mental
space. That does not mean all the space exists in our mind,
but it means that space exists in mind. Mind does not only
mean our mind, but it means mind, which exists in space.
The space we see is created by the mind in the space. This
is mental space and a little of that mental space is there
in us. It can create millions and millions of kilometers
of space on the mental plane, different from the space
around us. So, the mind in our dream creates as much
space as is required enough to be occupied by the number
of people in dream.
These are all a bit above our understanding, because
our generation has not yet evolved enough to receive them
readily. The children of the next generation will be a bit
nearer to these truths and they will be receiving lessons
about this education in schools, colleges and universities.
In dream state in which we are working in dreams, there
is one layer of consciousness which has nothing to do with
the layer of our 5% consciousness. The dream
consciousness is 10% when we compare it with 5%
we know, because it knows many more measures and

instruments of measuring than our 5% conscious mind
knows.
When we see the time in a watch, we can know certain
calculations and if you say I will come within five minutes,
we can have a rough understanding of 5 minutes with our
mind, because our consciousness of time consists of only
5 or 6 items. That is the seconds and the minutes, the hours
and the days and the months and the years. Beyond that,
we do not want to make our mind enter into time. And
into the sub-divisions of the seconds also, we do not like
to enter, because it is a big headache to us. Headache means
incapability of our head to receive it. The time which we
have in a dream can be multiplied by hundred. Like that
we can multiply all the measurements of time we know.
By then, we have so many varieties of time which are
calculated by us in our dream. And when we come back
to awakening, we cannot understand those measurements
at all. For example, when we are sleeping, if any one gives
a prick with a pin, immediately we wake up within a fraction
of a second. Within that fraction of a second, there will
be a big story created in our dream. In the dream we will
be walking in the street and suddenly we suspect that
somebody is following us and when we look back there
is somebody following us. Sometimes he may be a
policeman or sometimes he may be a thief. When we are
afraid of police in our conscious state, the fellow in the
dream takes the dress of a policeman, and if we are afraid
of a thief in the conscious state, the fellow in the dream
takes the dress of a thief. The person in our dream is only
an actor, who is ready to take up any costume according

to our fears and complexes. So, the person begins to walk
behind us and we begin to walk faster to escape from him.
When we look back, he also begins to walk faster. Then
we begin to run, he begins to run. We run swifty, he too
runs swifty. We see a bus. We want to catch the bus and
get into the bus to escape from the thief, but the bus starts
before we reach the halting point of the bus and moves
away more quickly than we. Then we are running more
and more quickly and we get a gasping of breath, because
it is very difficult. And at that time, if there is a person
not sleeping in our room, he sees us gasping while sleeping.
Then we see that the person is also running and gasping.
After a time we find that there is a big river on our way
and we cannot run further. There is no road; that is a dead
end of the road. Then we jump into a bush and we will
have the prick of a spike. We feel the pain of it and we
will get awakened. The dream starts after the pin prick
and the dream ends with the sensation of pain of the pin-
prick. It takes only a fraction of a second for us to receive
the pain and get awakened from sleep. But within that
fraction of a second, we have the story of two or three
hours running.
See, we can imagine many different types of time in
our dream. We know only one time. In our dream we
have ten types of times, each is different from the other.
One scale of time will be like Swiss Francs and another
measurement of time will be like French Francs, another
type of time will be like the Marks, another scale of time
will be like the Belgium Francs and another will be like
the Dutch Marks. A fellow, an Indian like me, who comes

out of the dream of Europe, will be having all types of
money in his pocket and when he goes to the market to
purchase something, he cannot know how to use it. The
result is, he gives the money to the person in the market
and asks him to take whatever he wants, and return the
change according to the calculator; that is the intelligence
of our consciousness after we wake up from a dream. So,
the moment you are awakened, you are an Indian in a
foreign country, though during sleep you may be a Swiss
or a French. Suppose, suddenly there is news in the paper
tomorrow that we are converting the time also into metric
system of time and we are issuing watches for metric
calculation of time. You should throw away all your watches
in the river; purchase the metric watches for metric time.
That is, one day is equal to hundred hours, one hour is
hundred minutes, one minute is hundred seconds. We have
the kilo-time. Then what will be our fate immediately? The
same is the case with our relationship between the terms
of our dream and our awakened consciousness. Now we
have our sleep consciousness and dream consciousness,
which are much bigger than our awakened consciousness,
which are much bigger than our awakened consciousness
which is only 5%. In your dream consciousness you can
go into the past and you can speak to your grand father
who was dead 5 years ago. While awakening, we can
recollect our grand father, but we can't live with him. But,
in our dream, we can not only live with him but can also
eat bread with him and take him to the restaurant and have
our pizza with him. So, we have many dimensions in dream,
which are not there in our 5% consciousness. Our ignorance
of the consciousness of dream and sleep makes us imagine

many many things, which are not there really. We have
imagined our heaven and we have imagined our hell. We
have imagined the details of our heaven and the details
of our hell. The result is every religion has its own heaven
and hell, and it is a big hell to understand, because it is
all our ignorance and our nonsense, which is not there in
the Scriptures.
In the scriptures, we find the words heaven and hell
in a very different and scientific sense; but what we call
heaven or what we call hell is only the hell of our ignorance.
Similarly we created many stories about the life after death
and we have our own impressions about the life after death.
The result is sometimes we see our dear ones, who were
dead, in our garden in the night and sometimes we see
them in the temples and sometimes we see them in our
dreams. It is true that we see them in our dreams but if we
say that they are haunting around us in the house and the
garden, it is only our imagination which haunts around us,
and not at all the persons that were dead because they have
already been busy with the next step of evolution. Nature is
not a stupid to allow them to go round our garden and our
kitchen. But, we make our own stupid stories about it.
I prepare a big glass plate with A, B, C, D around it
and I will place a little peg on the glass plate and I will
put my finger on it. I will ask you to put your finger also
on it; close our eyes and the peg begins to move. It strikes
some of the alphabets and you will make out a sentence
of it and then you question "Who are you?" Then the person
above our head answers, "I am William Shakespeare." Like
that you can get Milton, you can get Isaac Newton, you
can get Darwin, many of the great people of the past. They
have dictated volumes and volumes to those people who
are turning the planchette; now we have those volumes
printed also. We are very sorry for the lack of commonsense
of occidental mind to believe that they are the transmitting
messages from Shakespeare and Milton, because
Shakespeare might have taken thousands and thousands
of stages of evolution after he had left the body of
Shakespeare. How can he know that we call him upon
the planchette to wait for so many hundreds of years for
Krishnamacharya? So see, how many volumes of idiotic
thinking we have about the levels of consciousness.
Sometimes we are also called scientists for doing such
experiments. Some people call them spiritists and some
people call themselves theosophists.
Unfortunately, theosophy is something, which is quite
different and pure. These pseudo-theosophists spoil the
name of theosophy. Our ignorance about these levels of
consciousness makes us create our own hells like this. But
the fact is, there are many many layers of consciousness
within ourselves, which one should investigate carefully
and scientifically. Only then one must go into those darker
regions, only with the light given to us by God. If we
enter into the darkness without taking a light in our hand,
we stumble and fall into illusions. Sometimes we may
not return to our consciousness any more without that light.
So, we should be careful to carry the light given by the
Lord in our hands. The light given by our Lord is what
we call commonsense. Nothing is more holy and nothing
is more real than our commonsense. That which is not

satisfactory to the commonsense should never be believed
as valid, and we should not be hasty in denying things that
they are false and wrong, but we have no business to believe
everything as right before we understand. Carry the light
of commonsence in your hand. Open your eyes and keep
your ears open without any limitations, with an openness
of mind. In the language of Jesus Christ, 'those who have
eyes to see and ears to hear, can see and hear'. That is
the method of seeking the truth of the layers of your
consciousness.
Then you will come to know the truth of all the layers
of consciousness in you, that is, the 95% layers to which
you have been sleeping so far. Some of these layers are
in your sleep. Some of these layers are in your dream.
Five of these layers are in your awakened consciousness.
And many are there in the fourth state. It is into this fourth
state that we are expected to enter. It is this fourth state
which is called the heaven. It is called the kingdom of
God, into which we are expected to enter. And the last
step of the threshold is very very difficult to get up. There
are seven steps into the temple of the Lord and the seventh
step is very very slippery. It is wet with our emotion, always
damp and it is never dry, because we have our emotional
life always creating the moisture around it. And there is
a thick layer of moss upon that step. So, if you place your
foot on the step without being careful, what happens is,
the moment you press your foot upon it and try to lift the
other foot with all your weight, the first foot slips off from
the step. You will fall down, striking your tooth against
the step. On each fall you will lose one tooth, that is, one
birth. So, the step is very very slippery. It is full of our
suppositions and beautiful sweet stories about our heaven,
our earth, our hell, also about the angels, God and about
the life after death. So, if you place your foot correctly
and fully upon the step and hold in your hand the rod, that
is there to the doorway of the Lord, then you will not slip.
Then you can lift the other foot also and put it on the seventh
step. The rod, which is there to the door-way of the Lord,
is what we call the rod of the law, that is, what we call
nature around us.
Observe nature carefully how it transmits its own law
to you every minute, how the seed germinates into the tree
and how you have the seed nature in you to become your
own tree, how the flower is being pollinated into a fruit
and how you are to pollinate yourself into a child. Pollinate,
that is, fertilize to have the body of your next generation
in the form of your child, and how you should keep your
purity just as the flower keeps its purity, and observe all
the workings of nature, how the flower is pure by its
monogamy. When once the flower is fertilized, it never
allows to be fertilized a second time. That is the purity
of nature. That is why we call nature, 'Virgin Mother'.
Try to understand it. Try to receive the law that is governing
nature. See, how the sunrise and the sunset work upon your
consciousness and then learn how to behave in this world.
That is what is meant by holding the rod of the Lord's temple
carefully. Then you will not slip. Then you will not receive
any blows. Then only you will not lose your tooth. Then
we enter the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Lord, which is
called the fourth state of our consciousness.
How will be the experience of the fourth state? Is

it like our sleep? Yes, exactly. The mind and the senses
are sleeping, but not exactly like the sleep we know, because
we are awake and we know how we are. In our sleep we
do not know how we are. But in the fourth state, we are
in the awakened state and our mind is completely in sleep
and our senses are merged in it. Will it be like the dream
state? Yes, exactly. We have all the splendour and the
beauty of the dream, but the difference is, it will be only
a sweet dream and not a nightmare. The dream we know
may be sweet or horrible because we have no mastery over
our dream. Sometimes, we scream out like an animal and
get awakened from the dream and disturb the people in
the other room also, because we got a nightmare.
Suppose, in a dream, we have lost all our money in
a carnival and commit suicide. In the middle, can we ask
the dream to create a dream where we are rich and we have
earned millions and millions of dollars, so that we may
not commit suicide? We cannot dictate our own terms to
our dream. But in the fourth state, it is a dream which
you can direct and which is directed through you. Time
stops to exist to you with all the different scales of time
that are found in sleep, in dream and awakened
consciousness. You will exist and your dream will exist.
But it is as real as your awakened state and even more
real than your awakened state, and you may not believe
if I say like this. I will give you an example for it. But
if I give you an example, how can you know it? It is as
good as speaking about the taste of sugar, to the specialist
of sugar technology about whom you were speaking in the
beginning. But you know it, because you have experienced
it previously. The only difference is you are not conscious

of it. I am conscious of it because those who know made
me conscious of that fourth state that you are experiencing.
Now I will make you understand what that state is.
Suppose there is a beautiful musical concert arranged
here as the programme in the house of our Madam, our
hostess. You are all attending the music. Suppose Madam
comes and says, Krishnamacharya, there is a music
programme here, you can also attend". Then I say, "Madam,
I have to take the train at six. It is fifteen minutes to four
now and if you don't mind if I get away from the music
concert in the middle, I can attend and enjoy the music
for sometime. When it is time for train, I shall get up
and go away because I have to go to Liege in Belgium,
present myself there tomorrow morning where friends will
be waiting for me at Liege and then take a car to London."
The Madam says, "OK". I will go and sit down in the
musical concert. But when I get up from music and when
I come out from the room, it is 8:30 in the night. What
has happened? Why didn't I leave the place at the right
time to catch the train? It is because my mind was sleeping,
if so how could I get out of that state? Because the musician
stopped singing. I came to my normal consciousness, which
is our 5% consciousness. Then I came to understand that
I had missed the train. Then how is it that I didn't remember
that the next day people would be waiting for me at Liege
to go to London. It is very bad to neglect like that. But
the answer is I am not responsible.
When my mind is sleeping, how can I remember
tomorrow's programme? Because the mind is removed in
which the programme exists. When the mind is removed,

the programme is also removed, just as every thing we know
is removed.
Suppose I have a degree M.A.Ph.D. It is called M.A.,
Master of Arts and Ph.D., i.e., Doctor of Philosophy. The
university has given me a very high degree. When I am
sleeping, does that degree apply to me? I do not know
even A,B,C,D. While sleeping, I don't have a diploma.
Everyone is deprived of his diploma. So, the programme
was not there with my mind. Was I sleeping during music?
I was not sleeping, because I was enjoying music. Suppose
a person is sleeping here while the music concert is going
on. Can he enjoy music? Sometimes he can spoil the music
also, if he has a sound sleep. Sound sleep, that is, sleep
with sound. Like that, the musician may sometimes get
disturbed and stop the music. That is the only possibility,
but the person sleeping cannot enjoy music. I am not
sleeping because I am enjoying music. My mind is sleeping
because my programme is not there, everything is just wiped
out of the mind. And my eyes are not working because
I am not looking at the musician, though I have opened
my eyes, because I am enjoying music. Some people will
be looking at the musician and making fun of him while
the musical concert is going on, that is, because they are
not enjoying music. They are only listening to music.
Enjoying music is different from doing something with
music. Suppose the musician has a big button or a pimple
on the face. When I sit before him in the concert, while
he is singing, suppose I say like this, "My friend, look at
that button?". Does that mean I am enjoying music? Not
at all. It means I am a perfect idiot towards music.
Enjoying music is something different from giving the

presence of our dirty physical body to the musical concert.
We can throw our physical body in the hall and we can
be existing with the button of the musician instead of music.
The result is, all the others are enjoying music, whereas
we are existing at the button of the musician. So, when
we are really enjoying music in its true sense, our mind
is sleeping, our intellect is sleeping. The intellect, which
is like a monkey, can look at the button of the musician.
The monkey is sleeping, the dog is sleeping, the cat is
sleeping and all the animals in us are sleeping. The eyes
are opened, but the eyes are not looking at the face of the
musician, because the mind is not there. The ears are not
listening to the sound of the music, because the mind is
not there. They have established a connection of the wire
from the musician to us. There are people who listen to
the sound of music without listening to music. They cannot
enjoy music, though they are listening to music. They
cannot enjoy music, though they are listening to the sound
of music. The result is when there is beautiful sound of
musical notes, I will say, 'This is the 24th note of the 46th
sub-note'. That means I am a perfect idiot at music, because
I remember the arithmetics of music. Therefore, I have no
music. I know only the anatomy or the skeleton of music
but not the orchestral symphony of music i.e., the flesh
and blood of music.
What happens if the husband remembers his wife only
as a skeleton? There is only skeleton and no wife. Similarly
the fellow who has the arithmetics of music, has no music
at all. But enjoying music means we forget ourselves, our
intelligence, our logic, our thinking and our mind. All these
animals are sleeping. We are awakened only to music. We

are not awakened to the musician. We are not awakened
to ourselves. Suppose I try to remember myself that I am
listening to music all the time, all the two or three hours
when the music is going on, there is no music at all to
me. It is just like our remembering that we are sleeping
all through the night. That means we have not slept in the
night at all. What happens when we want to observe all
through the night that we are sleeping? That means we
are patients of utter insomnia. So, all the animals are
sleeping. The human animal that wants to remember
himself is also sleeping. I do not remember the name of
the musician, because I am enjoying music. Otherwise
do you know what I do? While all are enjoying music, I
will say like this, "Bete noire." That means, I will never
allow you also to enjoy music and my presence in the hall
will be like the presence of an ulcer to everyone. So, I
do not remember the name of the musician. I do not
remember my name. What happens if I remember my name
all through the music performance? I do not remember the
name of even my sweet wife because there is no music
if I remember her name. All these things disappear. The
totality of the mind sleeps and I am awakened to music.
That is called the example of the Fourth State.
Those who follow the yogic discipline will learn how
to enter and make a masterly approach into the fourth way
and how to live in the Fourth State of Consciousness. They
can make their life continuous in the fourth way and they
conduct all the activity of their daily life including their
professional activity, domestic activity, religious activity,
their financial and all the activities. All these things they
can conduct in the consciousness of the fourth way. Those

are called the Masters of their own existence and to them
there is no sorrow or joy. There is only the experience
which is sweetness, and for them there is no fear, complex,
jealousy, nothing to suffer. There is only one continuous
stream of existence of consciousness. That is what is called
the peace. It is all positivism of consciousness. Towards
this end nature is driving us and the evolution is taking
us to that end. To be born as a human being on this earth
is a great opportunity because we are given the opportunity
to enjoy this fourth state and live in that fourth state of
consciousness. And we are given the apparatus and the
mechanism to live in that consciousness. Remember that
the human birth is the only birth where we are given this
consciousness. This mechanism is not given to the animal,
the plant and the mineral kingdoms. It is given only to the
human being and so we should be wise to remember that
it is a great opportunity to be born as a human being, instead
of thinking that it is a great privilege.
When we think that human birth is a privilege, we have
to live only as a human beast without using the opportunities
given to us. But when we know that it is a great opportunity
and not a privilege, we begin to avail ourselves totally of
the opportunity given by nature, and live in the kingdom
of God as one of His followers. This is the goal of the
evolution of consciousness. Everyone of us should try to
know how to enter the kingdom of God. I am very happy
to know that you are all on the way, because most of you
are Yoga students. I once again thank our hostess for giving
us this opportunity to transmit this wisdom from person
to person. I wish you all a happy evolution into the kingdom

of God.
The eight-fold yoga path of Patanjali gives us a skillful
and easy way of approaching the path. If we follow the
discipline given in the Patanjali Yoga in a scientific and
skillful way, not to apply the rules roughly upon our mind,
but to know the artistic nature of Patanjali's concept, under
the guidance of a skillful, artistic and experienced Guru,
then very easily and within a very short time, we will be
able to live in the 100% consciousness, that is given to
the human birth as a sacred gift by God.
Question : Then should we find the Guru ?
Ans : No. The one truth which never fails is, the moment
we make our mind ready in its true sense, the very next
moment the real Guru will be with us, because it is a fact
that the Guru comes to us and we can never go to the Guru.
Always the Guru knows us and He knows the time when
to come to us. He never waits even for a moment or a
second when we are fit. It is only our fitness that brings
the Guru to us, and this is a truth, which is a promise of
the scriptures. It is a truth, which many earnest seekers
know, and it is a truth which I personally know in my life.
So, our Guru comes to us directly. He gives us the method
and makes us transform. Our law is our sincerity and the
spirit of offering of our total activity and all our interests
at the feet of the Guru.
Question : How can we see that the mind does not interfere?
How can we see that the mind does not appear
again?
Ans : As long as we are conscious of the mind, so long

it appears. Our mind is only a small hole on the background
of a higher mind. What we know as mind is only a little
window and the background is the real consciousness. And
we are trained to see only through the window. The more
we try to avoid the window, the more we will be thinking
of the window. So, we should find out a method. When
we are thinking something else, then the mind disappears.
That something should be in such a way that it does not
allow the conscious mind to interfere. I will further explain
in the next lecture.
Thank You.
* * *
The Power of Habit
adies and gentlemen, I am asked to speak about 'The

L Power of Habit'. I think, this is not the first time for
me to speak on this subject, in the occident. Many times
at many places I have been asked to speak, and therefore
I understand better what habit is, because it has almost
become a habit for me to speak on this subject. But at
the same time it is an important subject as we just care
very little to understand what habit is. There is much more
to know and make better use of it what we call 'Habit'.
There is no one in this world who is not habituated
to many things, good and bad. But he is wise who tries
to understand what it is. And he is wiser who tries to make
better use of the power of habit. In this sense, it is a very
valuable subject to speak and try to understand. To a
spiritualist everything is important. To a student of nature
who wants to be a devotee of creation, there is nothing
that is less important, and we try to pay more attention
to the subject 'Habit'. We know vaguely what habit is
because we have our own habits. And we wonder how habit
wields its influence upon us, if we just observe a few things.
I wonder how I could appreciate strong coffee before
I was habituated to coffee. Many times I tried to offer
The Power of Habit 91
coffee to a friend who was not habituated to coffee. He

tasted it and said, ''In what way is it better than milk?"
I had no answer. He said, "I am habituated to take milk
with sugar in the morning, and in what way is the coffee
more tasteful?" Another friend said, "I am habituated to
take a table spoonful of honey in the morning, now if I
attempt to take some strong coffee offered by you, I feel
like vomiting." That is what he said. Of course, I had
no reason to contradict what he said, because even after
50 years of the habituated mind to coffee, I still feel that
honey is better than coffee in its taste. I have no right
to deny that sugar with milk is more tasty than coffee.
So, I try to understand that there are two types of tastes.
One is natural taste and the other is cultured taste. If we
try the two things with a newly born child, we can
understand the truth of it. You touch the tongue of a newly
born child with honey, and observe its face and expression.
Then give a touch with strong coffee and then observe the
expressions of its face. I think the first example gives an
expression of expansion, whereas the second example gives
an expression of contraction of face muscles and nerves.
Of course, the expansion and the contraction of the
face muscles are only symbolic of something which is more
subtle, just like the features of laughing and weeping. What
we call laugh manifests itself on the face in the form of
the expansion of the muscles and the skin and the nerves.
But in fact, the physical expansion is not what takes place
in the person. It's only a symbolic expression of what
happens in him. Similarly with weeping. If a person weeps
there is a peculiar contraction of the nerves and the muscles,
and the glands are at work. But it is not what happens

in the person. Something happens in the person which
produces these changes in the nerves, the muscles and the
glands. The nerves, the muscles and the glands are of the
physical plane, whereas laughing or weeping is of the astral
or the mental plane. Laugh takes place on the mental plane,
but laugh finds its expression on the physical plane.
So, we have the symbols of laughing and weeping,
which represent the expansion of laughing and the
contraction of weeping. Expansion of what and contraction
of what? Try to answer the question to yourself. We can
say 'Self-expansion and Self-contraction', because the
expansion of mind is also symbolic and it is not the
beginning, and the contraction of the mind is also symbolic.
The person expands and the person contracts when he
laughs and when he weeps. The expression of life is natural
when there is expansion and it is unnatural when there is
contraction.
We can symbolically express that expansion and
contraction correspond with what we call life and death.
Atleast we can understand that a person is happy when
he is expanding and he is unhappy when he is contracting.
This is because a person wants to be happy and he does
not want to be unhappy. The natural preference of a person
to be happy indicates that what he calls happiness,
corresponds with expansion and he prefers to have it. What
he calls unhappiness corresponds with contraction and he
naturally prefers not to have it. Everyone of us wants to
be happy and we try to avoid unhappiness. Directly it
indicates that happiness is natural and unhappiness is
unnatural.
If we observe the face of a newly born child when

its tongue is touched with coffee, we find an expression
of contraction in the face and when honey is touched we
find an expression of expansion. This unfailingly proves
that neither the touch of honey nor the touch of coffee is
totally a conditioned reflex. It is not a conditioned reflex,
there is something else in it. And the difference is more
absolute than it appears to be. We have to accept that the
child desires to have a touch of honey and disdains to have
a touch of coffee. And yet, a person like me craves for
coffee. I feel very much happy when I find good coffee.
This happiness which is cultivated, is quite different from
the happiness that the child shows. So we can very easily
understand the power of habit.
Habit controls the mind in such a way that through
slow degrees it forces the mind to accept that it is happiness.
The same thing we have to accept about alcoholism,
narcotism, etc. No doubt, alcohol makes people happy, no
one can deny it. But this happiness is a force of habit, or
what the habit makes us call it happiness. In our regional
language Telugu, there is a saying by a great poet. It runs
like this, "Repeat, Repeat, your music is better". That is,
the more you repeat, the better musician you will be. "Eat
repeatedly a bitter leaf, bitter thing grows sweet." That is,
if you eat for the first time something which is bitter, it
is too bitter to you. If you eat for a second time it is less
bitter, a third time it is less bitter, after 10 years it is sweet.
That is what the poet describes. I think there is much truth
in what he says.
I use a substance called nut-powder and it is too bitter
to eat. Even after 40 years of habit, I still remember that
it is bitter, but still I feel it sweet when I chew it. I know

how bitter it was when I first made Ruth taste it. She tasted
it and she might have thought that I was a fool to make
her taste it. But I made her taste it a second time, it was
less bitter. After 3 or 4 years of acquaintance with me,
now she finds it sweet. And daily after lunch she herself
prefers to take some part of it and chew it. So, that is
what is called the force of habit.
And about habit we need not speak only of negative
habits, we can speak also of positive habits. Those, who
have positive habits, can never deviate from their habits.
That is why Patanjali advises us that it is not enough if
you understand what is good, because if you take a balance
and if you put understanding on one side, still it is heavy
on the other side. So, we understand many good things,
but still we feel like doing what we do previously. So,
if some one says that understanding good things is helpful,
we have to accept that it is not at all helpful. Knowing
good things, still the balance is like that, there is something
more weighty here. I know Shakespeare, I know Milton,
I know Shelley, Keats and I know the Old Testament and
the Gospel. I know many of the scriptures, but still I take
coffee.
So all these holy books, about which I talked, are less
weighty when they are there in the balance. There is
something in me which is more powerful than the holy
book, something more powerful than the Holy Ghost
himself. So the Bible is not able to lift it up. The Lord
God is not able to lift it up. The samething is true with
anyone of you also, not only myself. If anyone of you
has these things more weighty, I am searching for you

because I want to follow you. Let me discover you and
find out who you are, I want to follow your footsteps. Till
now I could not find your address. And then let us try to
add here one more weight, Reasoning. Still it is like that.
Not less than 100 doctors proved that coffee was not
good to my health. They could give out the best reasons
why it was not good to me. They could analyse the situation
of my kidneys and my bladder and they could convince
me that it was not good. Still you find the same thing.
I know that it is not good to my health. I am medically
convinced that it is not good, scientifically convinced,
rationalistically convinced, add rationalism. But still there
is something which makes me love coffee because I know
coffee loves me so much. I am faithful to coffee and coffee
is faithful to me; no one could come in between these great
fellows. This is the power of habit. Can you tell me what
makes the balance weigh this side, more this side? If you
have an effective method, you please tell me and let me
share.
Question : Apart from cutting off your head, you can
create a stronger habit.
Ans : That's it. Exactly. Only two people could advise
me this till now, one is Patanjali and the second yourself.
Question : I read it from Patanjali.
Ans : Here, what I have is habit. So Patanjali advises us,
you have to practise yoga. How? Is it to practise a set of
asanas, standing on the head or practising yoga more and
more like this or going into the forests and practising yoga
with the wild beasts? No, He says, you have the habit of
the five senses and the habit of the mind that is behaving
through the five senses, and the outer world attacking your
mind from five sides. That is your sight, your hearing, your
smell, your taste and your touch. The objects of these five
senses present themselves to your mind through your
senses, but the objects are not bad, the senses are not bad,
the mind is not bad. They are all the gifts of nature and
they are sacred and noble.
But an activity is going on, which we can call
'Reaction', 'reaction to the environment.' Whereas you
are expected to have action, you have only reaction to the
environment. When you are in the presence of others, you
are behaving in terms of others' presence, this is conditioned
by others' presence. When you are with Rudolf, you are
behaving in terms of Rudolf, when you are with Robert
you are behaving in terms of Robert. When you are reacting
to light, you are in terms of behaviour with light. But where
is your natural behaviour? When do you behave like
yourself? There is no opportunity because you are reacting
to one of the five senses as long as you are awake. So,
you are behaving in terms of any one of the five senses,
you are not behaving like yourself. There was no occasion
on which you expressed yourself, as yourself. This is what
has become a habit with you. Now you have to neutralise
this habit.
How are you to do it? How are you to suspend the
reaction you have? When once you suspend the reaction,
you are there as yourself, quite natural. But how to suspend
it? You should find yourself leisurely to talk to yourself.
Now if you try to fight out the reaction, you are adding
to the reaction, it is no use. A gentleman wanted to start
a new political party to teach the people that the world
was suffering from too many political parties. He wanted
to prove us the evils of too many political parties, so he
is trying to start a new party. He is only adding to the
already existing nuisance.
There is no use of opposing the reaction; no use of
trying to fight out the reaction. If I think I should not react,
I begin to react to the idea that 'I should not react'. Without
this idea it was better, because one idea of reaction had
been less previously. So Patanjali says, "Don't oppose the
ideas you have, but try to have an idea which possesses
you completely, which possesses your mind and senses
completely, so that all this activity becomes null." So, you
have to create a new centre of force. And you have to create
a new activity, which is all positive; then the existing
activity of reaction stops. Do you know how to do it? There
is a specific, scientific process to follow. And it is what
is called 'yoga'. That is what Patanjali says. Unfortunately,
the word yoga is used more frequently in the occident now-
a-days.
A person may teach you about 50 asanas and some
quantity of respiration to be stored in your lungs for
sometime and teaches you some self-smothering in the
name of pranayama, and then he calls the whole process
yoga. Everyone has his own yoga to teach you, whereas
there is only 'one yoga' in the world in its scientific sense.
Patanjali advises us for the first time, that 'you should
neutralise the habit by practising a habit'. He advised you
exactly as our friend Robert advised us. 'Practise another

habit'. He said, "repeat, practise repetition". That is what
Patanjali advised.
We see, a musician repeats a line 10 times or 20 times
as he sings it. An ordinary intellectual, who is not evolved
enough to be a good listener of music, wonders why the
musician repeats so many times, sometimes he finds it
meaningless. Are we deaf? Why should he repeat the line
so many times? He does not find so much significance,
because he is not evolved enough to listen to music. It
is not for the meaning of the sentence that the musician
repeats. Repetition has a different impact. Understanding
is different from the effect we receive from repetition.
If you teach a few lessons from the Gospel, I can very
easily understand them much more easily than I understand
a mathematical problem, because in the sentence of the
Gospel there are no problems. If you say, "Love thy
neighbour as thyself", I can very easily understand it, there
is nothing difficult in it for me to understand it. Whereas
the difficulty lies in making myself better. I am not very
much interested to make myself better, because I want to
possess better things. I am interested in having better things
instead of becoming better. This essential foolishness makes
me not understand the simplicity of the Gospel. See, I do
not understand the peculiarity of the logic, when I love
more to possess better things than make myself better.
That is why I find the sentence of the Gospel very simple.
No doubt it is very simple, because I am applying a wrong
instrument to it.
Understanding is not the thing that is to be applied

to the sentence of the Gospel. If there is mathematical
problem, then understanding is the thing required. So I find
it very easy. But if my father asked me to repeat the Gospel
sentence daily, I was foolish to think that my father was
a fool, because I did not understand what he wanted. He
repeated it life long and he had its impact, because I could
not convince him that 'Understanding is more important
than living'. He was eating better food and when I tried
to convince him that 'understanding is better than habit',
he was never convinced. So, a sentence of the Gospel is
simpler than a mathematical problem. Whereas there is
something to practise in the sentence of the Gospel, in the
mathematical problem there is only something to
understand and not to practise. That is the difference.
Patanjali asks us to begin to do something and repeat.
I can ask him, 'Anything?' Pantanjali says, "Yes". Can I
ask him even coffee? He says, "Yes. Try to repeat coffee
with veneration, then I begin to understand the force of
repetition. Repeat the idea that you should become better.
That is what Patanjali advises us. "Have a better taste to
live a better life. Choose for yourself what is better. You
need not allow anyone to advise you. It is enough if you
want to be better. Then you repeat what I say," He says,
"Observe the movement of your respiration. There is
nothing to understand here. But do it for five minutes, there
is nothing to understand, but do it". Do it for 10 days. There
is nothing to understand, but there is something which you
taste. And do it for one month, you know the taste of
something which others do not know. Then begin to make
your respiration uniform. Begin to breathe slow, soft and

uniform. Do it for 5 minutes a day, you have nothing to
understand in it, but after one month or two months you
find something to taste or experience. And then utter your
own voice and begin to listen to it. We are uttering so many
things while we are speaking to each other, but we are not
listening to our own voice. We are expected to utter our
own voice and listen to it. Practise it for 5 minutes a day,
there is nothing for you to understand in it. After one month,
you will experience something.
Now you have a repetition of 3 items, that is, you are
observing the movements of your respiration, and you are
making your respiration uniform and then you are uttering
your own voice and listening to it by uttering the sacred
word 'OM'. So for 5 minutes you are practising uttering
OM and listening to it. After 5 or 6 months of spending
15 minutes a day, that is five minutes to each of these three
items, you will find something which others do not. That
is, you will find that this is coming nearer and nearer. And
finally it comes to balance, because you have placed here
also a habit. Instead of having habit on one side and all
other damn things like understanding, knowledge,
reasoning, rationalism on the other side, you have placed
habit this side also. And gradually it begins to balance.
See, I doubt you were Patanjali in your previous birth
because you could give the ready answer. So you have
to repeat this at the same time everyday, same hour and
same minute and the same place. Then you are using a
habit to neutralise other habits. This is one example of
the power of habit. I think there is one incident in the
life of Sri Rama Krishna Paramahamsa, which some of

you may be knowing. There was an addict of crude opium
who came to him once and he had been trying to get out
of the habit for a very long time which he was not able
to do. He has seen many masters and mahatmas, many
swamijis and semi-swamijis, and yoga teachers and political
leaders, etc., etc.
He came to Sri Rama Krishna Paramahamsa and said,
"Can you make me free from this habit?" Then he smiled
and said, "I too have habits like you, but don't think of
coming out of the habit. I will take the responsibility of
bringing you out of your habit. Do not try to fight out,
leave it to itself. But just do what I say, daily. You take
a little balance used in India to weigh gold with some seeds.
There is what is called the jeweller's balance with which
the jeweller weighs gold and jewels". Rama Krishna asked
the fellow to purchase one such balance and bring it.
So, the next day he brought it and then he said, "Bring
one lump of chalk. Not chalk piece but there are lumps
of chalk, calcium carbonate." He brought it. And then He
asked, "You weigh the opium you eat with the chalk on
one side and the dosage of opium you eat daily on the other
side. And then have this lump of chalk with you daily. Daily
eat your opium after weighing with this. Just do it daily.
In the meanwhile, I take the responsibility of your stopping
opium. And you count the number of days that take before
you stop opium. How? Everyday after eating your opium,
you take your lump of chalk and make another mark, third
day third mark. But go on eating opium weighing with
that lump of chalk.".
So, he was doing it, after 20 or 25 days he found that

the lump of chalk being decreased, gradually it was being
exhausted, getting smaller and smaller. But the fellow was
able to maintain himself with the reducing quantity of
opium day by day. After 25 days, he could find that he
was reducing the quantity of opium. Then he could
understand what his Master did. And he got encouraged
and he continued. Finally, he had only a little bit of chalk
with which, after opium, he has drawn the line and stopped
it. Then he came to the Master and said, "I stopped it.
Then he came to the Master and said, "I stopped opium."
The Master smiled and said, "Better talk of something else
instead of opium." Because if we talk about opium too
much and say that we have stopped it and we have stopped
it, that means we are meditating upon opium once again.
Someday the fellow may enter the habit once again. So
he said, "Talk of something else." That is why Patanjali
says, "Repeat something else.".
Cultivate a habit of trying to neutralise a habit. That
is what the masters say. And in fact, there are many habits
in us that are inevitable. Our brother Rudalph has taken
me to the bank today and the bank officer asked me to
give a specimen signature. Why is the signature the same
always? It is habit. If we don't have the help of the habit,
how can we have what we say, signature? If we do two
signatures in two different ways like this, the bank officer
asks us to get out. We cannot have a cheque cashed. No
one accepts any papers from us if we have no signature.
So, what we call signature is nothing but habit. What we
call handwriting is nothing but habit. But these are
necessary habits, they are required. And we should
understand the difference between positive and negative

habits. We should use the power of habit to neutralise the
negative habits. In fact, positive habits have more power
upon us than negative habits, because nature is essentially
positive.
I will give you a little example. One person goes to
Vatican city and stays for one month, every year. He sits
there daily in meditation and after the month is complete
he comes back again and joins his job. Another person,
a jew, goes to Jerusalem once in a year, and about 3 hours
a day he sits there at the Sinagogue. After a month he
comes back and does his business. Another yoga student
goes to the Himalayas every year in the same month, for
example, in December and he stays for one month doing
some practices with his Master. And there is a fourth fellow
who goes on drinking scotch whisky day and night and
he cannot do anything if he stops it. There is another person
who takes that much of opium everyday in the night. He
cannot sleep if there is no opium. Another person drinks
about 3 litres of coffee in the day, that is Krishnamacharya.
You bring these six fellows and shut them in a prison,
give the fellows good food and good healthy drink and
if they want good music give them music also and provide
them with a good library of many types of books. Let them
have a good garden and a good valley. But shut these
fellows and let them not go to Vatican or Jerusalem or the
Himalayas and shut these fellows away from their bottles,
their opium and their coffee. See what happens.
This fellow begins to think, "This morning they will
be opening the gates and I would have been there in the
Vatican city listening to the church bells and now it is 8

o'clock, the music will be going on there. I would have
attended the opera and I would have lighted there in the
place before the pope's residence, the Swiss gardens, etc.
He is thinking about it, first day. The second day, again
he is thinking. After ten days, what happens? He can have
a better view of his experiences with the Vatican. He will
have a continuous vision of his own going there. His
imagination becomes clearer and clearer and he begins to
live in his own world better.
Same is with the second fellow, the jew. He will have
a clearer memory of Jerusalem than when he physically
visited. The other fellow will have a better conversation
with his Guru in the Himalayas, because now he has
everything in his vision. Day after day, he is drawn more
and more towards what he wants. He creates his own world
in which he begins to live. And after 10 or 15 days, he
never cares to know that he is away from his holy place
because in fact, he is never away from it. At first, he was
foolish to believe that he was away when he was physically
away. But gradually he could recognise that he was not
away. That is what happens to these fellows.
And what about the other fellows? They suffer a hell
on the first day. They feel that they are dying and the coffee
fellow will have a terrible headache and a constipation.
The opium fellow will have a pulling of all the nerves in
the body. The alcohol fellow will have a terrible trembling
of the whole body. So, each one has his own inferno, his
own hell-fire into which he falls in his Shirshasana. The
second day, he has his suffering but it is less. The third
day, he suffers but it is less. After 10 days, they are

otherwise engaged in some reading or some writing or some
observation.
The fellow never cares for what has been lost, because
his habit becomes less and less powerful, and it fails to
wield an influence upon him. It begins to lose its grip
upon the person. Whereas to these persons, it becomes
more and more. That is what happens when the positive
habit and the negative habit are controlled. So positive
habits have a greater control over man than negative habits.
This is because nature is essentially progressive and
positive. It wants to make us better. That is what the process
of evolution proves us.
The scientists prove that the living beings get better
and better forms through evolution, not worse forms. So
too the spiritualists prove that the evolution of
consciousness is making man better and better. Though
the surface mind is worse again, the progress of the
consciousness towards the Soul is always there. It catches
hold of the personality after sometime, after some rebirths.
The human birth will be possessed by the process of the
positive change of nature. And some day he begins to retrace
his own path, and the mind, the senses begin to follow the
soul. Until then, nature gives us births and deaths because
it has to create new opportunities for us again and again
when we fail. When once we get at the Soul Consciousness,
the force of habit begins to help the other way.
Here also, Patanjali gives us a good example. We have
the five senses, the objects of senses and the mind that
receives the impressions of the objects of the senses, but
we are there at this centre and we are not affected by any

one of these things. The mind and the senses, put together,
from the negative 'I am' that is the lower personality, what
we can call the lower human being, whereas the higher
human being in you who is called the 'Lord' is there as
'Yourself' within. And this whole thing negaitve 'I am' is
one principle that is living in you. The positive 'I am' is
the other thing that is in you. And generally habits belong
to the negative 'I am,' you should make a habit to make
an approach to the positive 'I am.' When you make such
a progress with the help of something which attracts you,
like good music or painting or poetry or the company of
a person whatever begins to help you, you take advantage
of it. Sometimes it may be a good book also. And then
repeat, begin to practise what is given to you.
You will have the fulcrum principle in you and as long
as you are existing in the negative 'Iam', you are like a
person walking against the fulcrum on the balance. Every
step you take will be burdensome, you have to walk against
gravity, because your habits make you gravitate again to
themselves. Once again you are trying to come out of your
habits; once again you are coming and slipping back. But
when you reach this point, you are safe. And when you
cross that point, the balance swings in the opposite direction
and the force of your habit helps you to take your progress
in the required direction.
The same force of habit worked against you previously,
but here, the force of habit is for you, it is favourable. The
same thing helps you after a certain stage. Your incidents
of your daily life will help you to reach your soul
consciousness, when once you begin to repeat some good

thing daily, if you begin to repeat the right yoga practice
instead of trying to understand what yoga is. Even though
you study the yogic literature of the whole world for 50
years and try to compare the books of one author with the
other, you will be no better than a great scholar of yogic
literature, you will know everything only to die with all
the details. In such a stage, the scriptures compare the
scholar to a donkey that is carrying bags of sugar. That
is, the donkey knows only the weight and not the sweetness.
So, a great scholar of yogic literature who begins to study
all books on yoga in the world, tries to compare the values
of two authors and three authors, he lives like a donkey
carrying bags of sugar and he dies with them.
So, Patanjali advises us not to try to understand what
yoga is, begin to practise what is given as instructions. That
is why in the first aphorism he warns us that it is only an
instruction and not a philosophy. Suppose when I am
hungry you serve me food and ask me to eat. Instead of
eating if I ask you what happens when I eat, and if I decide
that I should not eat until I understand what happens after
eating, the result is inevitable death. Same is the fate with
the fellow who tries to understand what yoga is. Yoga
is not a philosophy, it is not a discourse. It is a course
to practise. There is much to practise and very little to
understand in it. So when you begin to practise daily and
make a systematic repetition you will progress in such a
way that after certain time your daily incidents and the
presence of your friends and relatives and family members,
and your attitude towards them, are the only things that
help you to progress. That is why yoga is expected to be

inevitable to a house-holder after a certain time, because
yoga practice is not complete unless one is a good house-
holder.
Force of habit helps you; your very nature takes a basic
change. What we call individuality is only a force of habit,
but it is of a deeper nature. What we call the personality
is a force of habit. Everyone has his own personality
different from another. And it is only due to constant
practice in a particular direction that character shapes itself
and the tradition of a family takes its own shape. The
characteristic traits of a nation take shape. The
characteristics of a particular family, take shape.
Now let your life take a direction producing an activity,
self-prescribed. It rectifies all the oddities of our
temperament and character. Instead of fighting out habit
and fighting out the oddities and inequalities of the
temperament and trying to waste our time and energy, you
begin to make a new practice which leads your life in a
better direction. Then the activity of the whole family will
be directed. If you go to a backward country like India
and observe what we call the traditional family, you will
find some impossible things. You will find families where
all the members of the family are in one direction and one
attitude of life. No doubt they are less individualistic and
they are less rationalistic and less intellectuals, but they
are mascular enough to live happily. The kingdom of
happiness which we can call the kingdom of God is theirs
and no one can come on the way of their happiness. There
are people who live happily, continuously. If anyone thinks
that something else is more valuable than happiness, we

have to pity the logic of the poor fellow.
It is the power of habit applied to a whole family that
makes a happy family of a husband and his wife living
happily and rejoicing the company of their children, instead
of feeling very busy when the child comes to the fellow,
instead of living a worthless commercial life in the house.
The fellow lives very happily with the little angels, whom
he calls children and grand children. The parents play the
role of the gurus to the children and the grand children.
There is no generation gap in the family.
This is what is expected of the best use of the force
of habit. We can't say there is a better form of education
than to use habit in this way. If we have the stature enough
to define education in its true sense, not in the commercial
sense, then we can understand how best we can use the
force of habit. Unfortunately we are passing through a
century where education is only a memory test. We are
only in a paleolithic stage as far as education is poor enough
to have a stunted growth of his mental faculties, because
we can never escape the shock received by our false way
of educating ourselves.
The more educated a fellow is, the more stunned his
face is, because he is deprived of his expression every
moment. He is forced to represent other authors than to
represent himself and he is forced to accept that it is
education. Let us try to understand that education is a
science of alignment. Just as a photographer makes a good
focus of his camera to the landscape, so also the real
educationalist makes a better focus of the mind, the senses,
the will, the understanding and intelligence of the student,

so that the indweller receives a clear picture of the outer
universe. That is real education according to the definition
of the Masters of Wisdom. If you spare atleast two or three
years to understand the sentences of Alice A. Bailey about
education, you will understand what real education is, and
how to make better use of habit.
* * *
If you are happy with your own family, then it is a
test that you have made a better use of your habit. If you
are restless or too busy and too crazy when you are at home,
that means you are a thorough failure in understanding what
education is and a thorough failure in making better use
of habit. I take pride in expressing that we were brought
up in such a family where my parents made best use of
habit upon us and the result was experienced by us. During
a period of about 35 years of family life, we had no occasion
when we were unhappy with one another and we have been
only happy and not otherwise. Same is the case with every
traditional family of every backward country like India.
I think we should take advantage of such branches
of knowledge from the so-called backward nations and
make the best use of habit. Then we can understand what
liberation from self-conditioning is. The highest ideal of
human living is what the scriptures say 'Liberation'. They
mean liberation from self-conditioning. And that can be
achieved only by making the best use of "the power of
habit". Instead of trying to understand many good things,
instead of burning all our time in conferences like this,
if we try to put into practice what we are expected to do,
that is our habit nature. Take only two or three or four

principles and begin to put them in practice. Make it a
habit. And take advantage of the force of the habit and
see what happens. The miracle happens, that is what is
called, "Transformation".
Remember that the iron piece becomes a magnet and
it is only in the presence of another magnet and not at all
in the presence of a big volume called, 'Magnetism'. If you
place iron piece on the table and begin to rub it with a
book on magnetism it will be as much iron as it is, even
after 100 years. That is the result of trying to understand
things and knowing philosophy and discussing things.
Transformation never, never takes place by discussing
things. By feeble useless methods like comparing and
contrasting, and the international educationalists gathering
into seminars and discussing many dirty things, nothing
happens, the world remains as uneducated as it is, though
literacy increases.
We are trying to deceive the world by calling literacy,
education. Literacy is only a mechanical process, education
is something different. There may be an illiterate who is
highly educated who knows how to help you, who knows
how not to harm you, who knows how to cooperate with
you and who knows how to do something helpful to you
and to himself. And still there are most uneducated brutes
among the highly literates who discuss international
political situations and wars, and precipitate economic
situations that are harmful to the common man, and
precipitate wars and destructions. So, there are literates
who are uneducated and illiterates who are highly educated;
we know them in definite terms very much everyday.
Let us try to distinguish between literacy and education.

We can give value to literacy also, but let us give first
preference to education, not to literacy so that we may not
be idiots. Let us try to use the force of habit to make a
magnet out of the iron piece to effect transformation of
the negative 'I am' into the positive 'I am.' This is what
I understand by the force of habit. And if there is something
to discuss, we can have any discussion or free questions.
Question : What is the most effective habit that one should
form?
Ans : The one effective habit that can be practised and
that can be called 'the Acqua Regia' of all other habits is
to select a piece of work in the day, which involves service
on the physical plane, trying to do something that is useful
to someone on the physical plane, not the intellectual plane
and spending as much time as possible. It may be half an
hour, one hour or a day. That is the most effective habit
forming effort that I know. It makes the required changes
in everyone.
One should submit oneself to a piece of work which
is useful to others and the work should belong to the
physical plane, that is our body should be invloved in it.
That is my experience with the method, because it
minimises thinking and then thought is allowed as far as
it is needed. Beyond that, thought is controlled by such
a process. That is my experience. I think from this point
of view, it is more fortunate to live in an unfortunate country
like India, because we have much more scope to do such
work. That is my experience with India also.
Question : We know we have victim consciousness but we

also have poverty consciousness. So when we
serve, we are stingy in our service even though
we have more than poor countries have. What
is the habit that would counteract that
stinginess?
Ans. : I think there is no much effect of the stinginess or
the poverty consciousness in the mind. When an individual
begins to approach individuals not representing any country
or nation, just if his mind approaches in an individual
capacity ignoring the identity, then that is the only way
how to counteract the victim consciousness and the poverty
consciousness also. For example, if I have an idea of an
Indian or an American or a German, then there is a
possibility of something working upon my mind. But if
I make it a daily habit to do something useful to someone,
without having a concept of a poor man or a poor nation,
then it becomes easier.
That is why in the spiritual practice, we are expected
to grow the awareness of 'God-Consciousness' in the person
whom we are helping. That is, we are expected to remember
'God-presence' in the so-called poor person or inferior
person, so that our complex of inferiority or superiority
is wiped off. Otherwise it is very difficult to erase from
the mind, the consciousness of the helper and the helped.
So, the best thing is to practise the awareness of 'God-
presence' in others, especially those who are weaker than
ourselves, those are less intelligent, less healthy and less
strong than ourselves. That is how the scriptures prescribe.
I add a little point, supplementary to what you

questioned. Whenever we help someone, there are two ways
of understanding it. One is to try to help others, and the
other is to help himself. The scriptures teach us that doing
a good thing is not for the benefit of others because it will
be automatically done by anyone if we do not do it. That
someone does it better than we, is always a truth. But when
we happen to do it, we create an opportunity to make our
senses and mind better. It has a purificatory value and
it is more for that purpose that we practise helping others.
That is what the scriptures also teach us.
If I want to practise helping others, I should not do
it, if I believe that others are being helped by it, I should
do it if I sincerely believe that I am helped by it. So, doing
good thing is purificatory in its primary value. The mind
and the senses become purer and purer of the complexes
we have because no education is available that can remove
the complexes from our mind. This is the only education
we have on earth, that is to try to help others to purify
ourselves. And to help others is only an instrumental value
because anyone does the same thing. If we do not do,
another person does it better. If we do it, our vehicles are
purified. That is what we have to understnad about the right
practice which can remove the complexes from the mind.
When we make it a habit, then the power of habit can be
best utilised.
Question : Why can't we be selfish? Why is it bad to be
selfish? First of all try to explain me.
Ans : It is a complex, it is a timidity to feel that we may
be selfish. We have to accept that we have selfishness.
And we should be happy to accept that we have selfishness,

because whether we accept it or not, it gives a greater
pleasure to help others. And it is only for the pleasure
of it, we are doing it. And it remains to be a truth whether
we accept it or not. So it is better to accept it. That is
my conviction about the matter. When we are selfish why
can't we accept it? Then it goes away.
I think, we will not be confronted by such questions
when we choose to place ourselves in a simpler society
of a backward country, where we find less and less of
complexes. That is the only thing we can do because very
easily we can find out what the other man needs, when
we go to such a country, which we are proud to call
backward. So, we should take resort in a simpler society
and after sometime when the number of people who
understand simplicity increases, we can find that the society
in the advanced countries also becomes simpler. Until then
we have some difficulty in the so-called advanced countries.
So, it is only the process of international brotherhood
that helps us. Unless you are required, you cannot try to
help anyone, that is always a fact. Place yourself in a society
where you are required and your sincerity brings you people
who require your help really. It is the instinctive human
telepathy that establishes the contact between the helper
and the helped. Beyond this I cannot give you a better
solution for the present.
Question : With regard to the habit of service, if we should
not have the thinking that we are serving others
and have the thinking that we are only purifying
ourselves, what is the role of love in service?
Ans : If you know that your love purifies you, it is no

disqualification to your love. OK. It gives you better taste.
Anyhow, love manifests itself according to the degree of
evolution in which we are. Evolution permits us to love
as much as we can. When once you begin to love the
neighbour it gives you pleasure; it is an incentive and in
no way a disqualification. Your love makes you do service
without any intention or motive; when you feel that you
are satisfied, it is no disqualification either for your love
or for your service. That is what I feel about it.
And everyone is not fortunate to love his neighbour.
When one comes to the stage of evolution enough to love
one's neighbour, automatically one feels the joy of it. And
the result is service which helps him purify his own
vehicles. I think there is nothing that stops him from doing
it when he realises that his vehicles are being purified by
service. Instead, it gives an impetus to his love nature also
and purifies his love from the level of emotions to the level
of devotion. That is what happens. It is no disqualification.
Question : Is contraction also an aspect in service?
Ans : Contraction aspect is also in service, because
contraction and expansion put together form what is called
pulsation. And the formula of life is pulsation, for example,
the heart beat and the respiration. The mind also has its own
nature of pulsation. Some times it expands and sometimes
it contracts. Whenever we feel like helping our own people,
it is the contracting aspect of love. Whenever we feel like
helping someone who is in need and whom we do not know,
it is the expansion aspect of love. And both are natural. That
is what I feel, after you have presented your question.
So, there are the contraction and the expansion aspects

to love also. No one of these two is negative, because
help or service is never negative, it is positive. But the
expressions of contraction as expressed in nerves and
muscles, are shown only when there is something suffering
or negative; whereas the expressions of expansion in
muscles and nerves are shown only naturally when there
is some experience of happiness. Even medically speaking,
when there is a happy experience, there is an expansion
principle working in the tissues and the circulation in
general. Whenever there is a negative aspect like fear or
sorrow, there is a contraction principle working in the
vascular system and the nervous system.
Therefore, when I spoke about contraction and
expansion in the beginning of the lecture, I spoke only about
the facial expressions of a person and not the contraction
or expansion applied to service or love. When applied
to service, both the contraction aspect and the expansion
aspect work as positive aspects. Both the aspects give
happiness to the person who helps, because doing service
always makes one feel happy. That's all!
Thank You.
* * *
Work as Discipline & Prayer
thank you all for the opportunity you have created for
I me. I thank our host who has given us awarm reception.
When we are placed in hot atmosphere we require
something cool to drink. And when we are placed in cold
atmosphere we require something which is warm to drink.
Then we say, it is happy. Is it the warmth or the coolness
that is happy to us? Neither of it is really happy. Sometimes
according to the environment warmth is happy and
sometimes coolness is happy. The life principle, we have
oscillates between the two extremes. So, life requires
something cool when it is hot, and requires warmth when
it is cold. When is it that we have real happiness? At what
temperature are we really happy? So, what we call
happiness according to the external sensations is only
relative and is only temporary and it depends upon the
environment. If environment were to decide happiness,
happiness will be always oscillating between happiness and
unhappiness, and that is the sum and substance of human
life when we take it as a sum total of sensation. But
generally we live according to sensations. When we have
work we desire for rest. When we have too much of rest
we desire to do something or to speak to someone. When
Work as Discipline and Prayer 119
we spent many hours lonely we require company. Is there

any real truth in it?
There seems to be some truth in what we call
happiness; but as long as we depend upon the external
sensations, there seems to be an idea of happiness but not
happiness. To many of us happiness is only an idea and
not an experience. We live in hope of happiness, we work
in hope of happiness and many times we live in the absence
of happiness but in the total presence of the idea of
happiness. When happiness is only an idea, it cannot be
an experience. So, when we want to understand what real
happiness is, we have to understand ourselves away from
the external sensations. Is it to endure sensations? When
the sensations are positively real to us we cannot endure
them. If we are asked to sit there we can't endure it. When
we are asked to sit throughout the night outside in winter,
we can't endure it. Not only that the body cannot live
through it but also the mind cannot endure it. So, there
are two aspects in it. One is our enduring and the other
is the body enduring it. The endurance of the body is real
and the endurance of the mind has something imaginary
about it. If we distinguish between the two, we find that
there should be a degree of resistance and we should be
able to endure through some skilful method. When we
are thinking of heat and cold there is no question of
enduring them. Only when our mind is switched off to
another thing which is more interesting, then there is no
question of enduring them. Only when our mind is switched
off to another thing which is more interesting, then there
is something which we call endurance.
Our five senses are working in the environment and

the mind is responding to the environment. Whenever the
mind stands in contact with environment then the mind
behaves according to the environment, and the result is
the absence of happiness. When the mind is undergoing
change continuously how can there be happiness to us?
So, there should be a method to understand and practise
by which the environment starts to exist to us, and we begin
to live, then it becomes real life. That is possible when
we practise the science of spiritualism. The senses stop
to exist to the environment and the environment stops to
exist to senses when the mind and senses are engaged
somewhere. For example, you are absorbed in something
which is very important with your friend who is in some
other place. Then in your absorption of the thought with
the friend your environment stops to exist to you just as
the bricks in the wall now before your eyes stopped to exist
to you until I suggested to you, though your eyes were
opened and the bricks were in front of you. You were not
looking at the bricks until I suggested to you. And it is
because we were engaged in some other thought. That
means the bricks stopped to exist to you as long as you
lived in your world. Now, you should be able to choose
your own world where you can live when the environment
stops to exist to you. This is one aspect.
The other thing is, if everyone chooses a thought to
get absorbed, there will be no relationship between two
persons, and everyone should live in his own world. That
means, there is nothing common between any two. This
makes life impossible. So, what we choose should be
having something common with others. And when we

choose that which is common with others, we have to
choose that which is really useful to others and ourselves.
Otherwise it cannot be common between two people. If
we choose only according to our liking and environment,
then it cannot be common with others. I may like something
and you may like some other thing. I may like to get
absorbed in poetry and you may like to get absorbed in
painting. Both can be called artists but they both have
nothing in common. When both the artists are put together
they have nothing to do in this world. The painter speaks
of his own art, gets absorbed in his own painting, and the
poet gets absorbed in his own poetry and tries to produce
his own poetry. Then there is no possibility for a third man
to enjoy the poetry or the art because he has his own interest
to get absorbed in other things which are not at all in
common with either the poet or the painter. Like that there
is a world which can be created by everyone for himself,
but there is also a world which is common to many. We
should have atleast that which is common to two people
and which can get two people absorbed in one interest,
and then the environment stops to exist to both. If three
of us have an interest it keeps us absorbed in our own world.
If hundred of us have a common interest it can keep the
hundred away from the environmental effect.
What is it that can form a common ground for hundred
people to get absorbed? We should find common interest.
What are the interests that are common to all the human
beings? Food, drink and shelter form the common interests.
When we begin to eat food, when we begin to drink water,
when we begin to build our own house, once it is finished

the interest is not there. So, it is only disconnected and
not continuous. So, it is ordained for the people on this
earth that there is something common in all, that is myself
working for you and yourself working for me. Then you
find common interest between us both and the work goes
on continuously so that it may not be disconnected. And
the interest becomes common more and more. In this world
nature has ordained us to have some work to do and it
has linked up our livelihood with the work we do. Anyone
on this earth cannot live without doing something which
is useful to others. If anyone wants to live like that, life
becomes misery to him. If a business man is doing his
business he may think that he is doing for his own capital,
for his own profit and benefit but what he does should
be useful to others. Otherwise he cannot do business. He
may get benefit from what he does but what he does should
be of some use to others. I cannot cut my hair and sell
it to others in the name of business. Nobody will purchase
it and there is no business. We should sell something which
is of some use to some people. So, the work of business
can be for our profit but before that it should be for the
use of others. I may call it my business but in fact it is
the business of others that I am doing because I have to
see that my business should be of some use. If I am
producing tumblers and think that it is my business, it is
not true. It is the work of others that I am doing, so that
others use the tumblers and it is for their use that I am
working, whether I accept it or not.
If one starts a big shop for one's own benefit, one
should sell things that are useful to others. No one can
sell dust in his shop and make a profit. If he calls it his

shop he may call but it is not true. It is for the use of
others he is selling things. So it is the work of others that
he is doing. Business is his and the work is for others.
Same is the case with the profession of anyone, if you are
working as a manager in an office, or as a clerk in an office,
or if you work as a carpenter or a mason, then the work
is yours but the work is done for others. The profession
is yours but the profession is intended for others, not for
you. So, everyone of us almost on this earth is linked up
with some work which is of really use to others. The more
we think of the use to others the more we will be benefited.
Atleast for the selfish use of our own benefit, we should
be more polite and more useful to others. If the business
man has a competition in the market, it is only the good
business man that can stand the competition for a continued
length of time and can sustain himself. If a business man
plays some deceit and cheating he may believe that he
will be benefited immediately, but the result is he will be
kicked off soon. So, living beings are kept on this earth
and linked up with work and sincerity.
At first people may begin to work for the selfish benefit
but gradually when we take more and more births we will
come to understand that work is for others and the benefit
is to sustain us. When this body requires food, drink and
rest and when the public requires the same thing, there
are two angles through which we can see the fact. One
is to maintain ourselves, we can do our business. To feed
ourselves, to supply things to ourselves, to have a good
house for ourselves, to have a bank balance for ourselves,
and to have a property for ourselves, we have to go on

working. We work for ourselves and when we believe that
we work for ourselves, the interest will be in us and the
quality of the work goes down. When the quality of the
work goes down we will be gradually kicked by the society
as cheats and then again we begin to work for the society.
Once again we take up the aspect of business man and
we try to be good to others for a selfish motive. But when
our interest is with our motive, we again gradually lose
interest in our goodness to others and we begin to care
more for our income than for the quality we produce to
others. Then once again we become unpopular and once
again we will be kicked out. Let it be an individual or
a family or a nation or a race or a country, the fate is like
that. When one works for others, when others find him
more and more useful, the existence of one will be more
safe. When he cares less and less for others and cares only
for his return or his profit in a business or only for the
salary of his job on the first of every month, then the quality
of his work goes down and he will be kicked out. This
is inevitable in this world though we can play a little deceit
here and there.
The total is that unless we do something really useful
to others we are not allowed to live on this earth. The
whole set up is fixed as our psychological set up in the
form of our human nature. It is set up by nature that created
us. The same nature has created human nature in which
we are living; it has arranged the same aspect in the human
nature so that we may behave only according to human
nature and begin to work for others, not allowing others
to take a benefit when the work is not useful. So, there

is something in human nature which keeps us working,
it may be compulsory or optional. We may do it unhappily
or we may do it happily, but we have to do it and it becomes
compulsory. An amount of discipline is automatically there
in nature of which we can take advantage. If we do not
understand this type of discipline that is already there in
nature, it stops to be discipline and becomes compulsory
and punishment. When discipline is properly understood
it becomes pleasure, when it is not properly understood
it becomes punishment. We may punish ourselves thinking
that our work is compulsory, and we may feel most unhappy
to work for others. We may complain to our friends that
we are unhappy to work for others and say that we lose
all our independence in the hands of others because we
are working for others. Even then it becomes compulsory.
We have only to begin to understand the innate discipline
in nature that is based in human nature in such a skilful
way that no individual can escape, because the human
intelligence has a tendency to escape also. Unless it
undergoes discipline for a long time the individual
intelligence tries to escape from duties always. Whenever
it tries to escape it will be kicked off from the society and
the result is confusion and war. And whenever there is
war we have a bitter lesson to learn. And again the society
will be reorganised with the same values which were older
so that we begin to work for others once again.
What happens if everyone has to cook for himself in
the house? No one can do anything. He has to cook and
eat for himself from morning to evening. He has to wash
his clothes and iron them for himself. And he has to polish
his own boots. Not only that, he has to prepare his own
laces, he has to knit his own stocking and for that nobody
is going to give him the material to prepare. If I come to
you and say, "Sir, I have to cook my food from morning
to evening, therefore, you be giving me the flour for
preparing bread and some fuel for fire and some containers
and vessels to prepare my own food, you are not going
to accept it." Even though you want to favour me, it is
not possible for you. Therefore, there is a beautiful
arrangement in this world that you should do my work and
I should to do your work. Unless I do your work and you
do my work, we do not live in this world; we are going
to die and perish. See, how nature arranged our parts of
the body on us and when your right hand is itching your
left hand has to scratch it, a right hand cannot scratch itself.
When you have to wash your left hand it is only your right
hand that can wash it, no hand can wash itself. And if your
eye has a swelling under it, only it is the eye of others
that can see, your eye cannot see your eye. Your tongue
can know the taste of other things, but it cannot taste itself.
The nose can smell the smell of other things, but it cannot
find its own smell. Any part of our body is arranged in
such a way that it can do the work for the other parts of
the body, but no part can do work for itself. The head cannot
walk for itself. The legs carry the body and the body
nourishes the legs, the mouth works for the whole body
the mouth cannot feed itself and keep quiet. What the mouth
eats, goes into the stomach and not into the mouth. This
is the arrangement that is done in the society. Whatever
arrangement you find in your own body and the parts of
your body, you will find the same arrangement in the society
and the same law governing the society. Only when you
think of others in terms of usefulness and in terms of some
work, you can survive.
The next step is, it is your duty to understand that the
work you do for others is sacred. You should understand
that it is the only means of discipline. If you stand in your
own room, do asanas all day long, keep your body fit and
healthy and call it discipline, it is false. It is only hygiene
and not discipline. Discipline is when we are in the presence
of others. When we are to practise discipline we can practise
it only when we begin to do something for others.
Sometimes parents very much try to enforce discipline upon
their children. In some countries, the parents are very much
mad after the discipline of young people. They say, "Be
disciplined". And they do not allow their children to do
anything. They want them to be disciplined. They will be
utterly disappointed because in the end they find their sons
cheats and gangsters. It is only by creating some work,
you can give discipline to anyone. Similarly, by doing
something to others, we can discipline ourselves. Only by
talking to others we can discipline our speech, only by
thinking about others we discipline our thoughts. There
is the necessity of three-fold discipline in human life. The
first one is discipline of the body which can be found only
by manual work. The second one is discipline of speech
which can be had only by our conversations with others.
And the third one is discipline of our thought which can
be done only by thinking good about others. Without
practising this three-fold discipline, how is it possible for
us to live on this earth?
So, when we properly think that it is the work that

gives discipline and the school which teaches us how to
work is the family, the unit of the father, mother and child
should be the first school of the child. The father gets his
discipline as father. Mother gets discipline as mother and
child gets discipline as child only in an ideal house. But
there are many practical difficulties to receive discipline
in the modern occidental set up. I don't say that it is the
defect of the occidental set up but I say it is the defect
of the present set up of the occident. In ancient days it
was not like that in the occident. There was the unit of
the family in the occident also working as a school as the
first school to the members of the family as much as it
is done in the traditional families of India even today. But
when the child is sent to a nursery school and when children
are sent to residential schools and when old people are
sent to prisons of old age homes and when young couples
do not know what to do in the house, it is about hundred
years back the occident has gone into such an undesirable
state and the result is, the old people die a helpless death
having no companion. They die for ten years or fifteen
years continuously because they are alone in their rooms
not knowing what to do. The children grow up as orphans
without knowing what psychologically a father or a mother
is. And the parents are still living as a couple, not as parents.
And they do not realise how they are husband and wife.
They can realise that they are only man and woman but
they can realise that they are husband and wife, and also
that they are father and mother.
But all this was present in the occident also before
the advent of the industrial revolution. Just have a look
back into the real values of the society. Do not be ashamed

to accept that we have degenerated in our real values. Be
ready to rectify and demand what you really want. It should
not be a political fight for rights, but it should be spiritual
confirmation of how you want to live once again as human
beings realising that work is worship, that work is the only
thing that purifies you, that disciplines you and keeps you
in the interest of a human being. Without the interest in
a human being, the human machine works only as a lifeless
and cold machine. Unless, the father and the mother feel
the fatherhood and the motherhood to the child, they do
not understnad what for they live. It may be one child, not
more than that.You can be careful about your family
planning, there is nothing wrong in it but you should be
a parent of your child and see that the child begins to work
with you. The child should see that it begins to work with
the parents. Otherwise when the child is sent to the
residential schools, it does not understand what relationship
it has with others. It becomes only a computer of education,
a machine which reads and reproduces, which learns and
remembers,which works in the world and which is
condemned. There will be no difference between a motor
car and a living being. See how work can be your discipline,
how work can make you live. Work for your people makes
you understand the need of work for others. Affection to
your own people makes you understand the affection for
other people. Step by step it leads you to have an affection
in the spiritual sense. Unless you are ready to serve your
child when it is sick, if you join your child in hospital and
if you go to the cinema or a week end, you cannot know
what the child is. You cannot understand what affection is.
Unless you experience and understand what affection is,

you can be a machine of intelligence but you cannot be
a human being. The ideal of human existence is experience,
not intelligence. It is affection, and it is not mere mechanical
activity. See, how you wish to have your associates. Why?
Why do you want associates in life? It is the nature of
life to have a companion in life, to have a friend in life,
to have many associates in life. It is the realisation of life
and for that you always desire because it is the highest
realisation. And if you are deprived of it and be contented
with your own intellectual activity in an industrial way,
you do not find the meaning in life, except eating the best
food and drinking the best drink and living in the best house.
After that your mind searches for something else and you
cannot know what that something else is. It is because you
are not trained to know it. It is necessary for you to get
trained for it and it is the social set up that makes you
understand. This is one aspect of understanding that work
is worship.
Now let us take up another aspect "the law of triangles
of work". In the ancient Indian scriptures a triangle is
described about our own activity of life. One is our duty
to society, the second point is the remuneration we get,
the third point is the comfort we get by using the
remuneration. So, these three put together are called the
triangle of society. And where to begin? You are asked
to draw the triangle of society. With which point are you
to begin in your life activity? One way of beginning it is
like this. Go to your office and do your duty. So, start
with the first point, that is your duty in office or your duty
in business. Then you get your remuneration. This is the

second point. After earning you spend it for yourself, this
is the third point. So, it is for your food and for your drink,
it is for your clothing and for your housing. It is for your
comfort and for your benefit that the other two are working.
Then what happens? The triangle stops with the third point.
Your activity stops with yourself. This is one way. The result
is what we know in the 20th century. If everyone works
in the office to get his salary and the salary is used for
his own benefit for him to eat, drink and dance, there ends
the matter. No one can have anything to do for the others.
The result is disturbance and if the past 50 years of human
history can be called "progress" you can call this result
progress. It is left to you to understand and believe if it
is progress or something else. Have we progressed during
this 50 years? The politician tries to deceive showing the
aeroplane and the scientific advancement, the atomic and
the electronic progress. He wants to convince you that
everything is at your beck and call. Everyday he is ready
to deceive you with this argument.
Yes, everything is at your beck and call but what about
you? Everything around yourself developed but what about
your development? What about your comfort? What about
your satisfaction? Satisfaction is from within and not from
the better environment. When you are satisfied it is called
satisfaction, but when your house is made of gold it cannot
be called satisfaction. When you are asked not to eat and
when money is used to make a chair of gold and when
you are asked to sit in the chair and if you say you are
hungry, if the politician says, "Your chair is made up of
gold, don't care for your hunger. In the previous century
people used to sit in wooden chairs, now you are made

to sit in the electronic chair. Don't care for simple things
and little things like your hunger and thrist," if he puts
forth his argument what is the result? You try to resist
for sometime the hunger and then either you have to fight
and eat or you have to die in the golden chair.
Once again the story of the king Midas and the golden
touch comes true. A king prayed to God and when God
asked, "What do you want?" The king said, "Whatever
I touch should become gold." Of course, the king was
also a big industrialist. He wanted that everything should
be converted into gold by his touch. God said, "Think
once again and then you once again ask me". He said,
"I have thought everything, gold is more costly than
anything and give this power to me." Then God said, "Are
you going to leave me forever, because I have many things
to work for others. If you go into troubles, don't call me
once again." King said, "I will not go into troubles because
everything I touch becomes gold." God said, "Amen". The
king got down in the morning from sleep and wanted to
have coffee. When the coffee was brought to him, the
moment he touched it, the cup along with coffee in it turned
into gold. He could not drink.
He was very thirsty; he touched the glass of water and
it also turned into gold. Then he was very much hungry
and he wanted bread, the servant brought bread. He touched
it and it was a beautiful piece of gold. So, he could not
eat. Then finally his little daughter came saying to him,
"Father". He said, "I am dying come near me". And he
touched her, it was a little beautiful statue of gold and no
daughter at all. Then he prayed once again.
God came and said, "What a fool!"

He said, "Take away this power from me".
God said, "I will take this. What do you want in return?"
The king said, "My daughter".
God said, "Is not gold more valuable than your
daughter?"
The king said, "I am a great sinner".
Then God asked, "What more do you want?"
"I want my bread".
And God asked, "Is not gold more valuable than your
bread?"
He said, "I am a sinner"
"And what more do you want?" God asked.
He said, "Water".
God asked, "Is not gold more valuable than water?"
He said thrice, "I am a sinner".
And this is the sum total of the history of the past 50
years of mankind, not only in the occident but also in the
orient. The whole globe has the trait of the king Midas.
It is a matter of degree of difference, it may be a little less
in the orient and it may be a little advanced in the occident
because the occidents are always advanced. But we should
not be ashamed of rectifying ourselves. We have sinned
the greatest sin against God. Just as it is said in the book
of Exodus, "Man enslaved man, country purchased country,
nation purchased nation, man purchased man." This is
because man started to work on the first point, received

at the second point and stopped with the third point.
Now, there is another way. You start with the second
point, travel to the third point and then travel to the first
point. That is, start with the remuneration. Use it to sustain
your body. Only to use your body for the first point. That
is your duty. You work for the society. When everything
culminates in the work for the society and when the triangle
ends with the point one, then the world will be happy. There
may not be electronics and atomics or there may be atomics
and electronics, but there will also be happiness. Then
what should be your prayer? Then your prayer should be
like this, "Let my body be sustained by the remuneration
I get, so that the parts of my body work for the society.
And the work I do in my office and the work I do in my
business; let it be the goal. Let me live for it. Let me
not live for the food I eat. Let me eat my food to live and
to do what I have to do". This should be the prayer. So,
in the ancient Indian scriptures the Mahabharatam and the
Bhagavatam you find this comparitive study of these two
triangles, Triangle starting with one and culminating with
three. That is one school of thought which we can call
the 20th century school of thought. When the world has
gone into three global wars with great competition, it has
resulted in a society of orphans, children not knowing their
parents, old people not living with their young ones, ole
people dying like dogs, children living like pigs to be
slaughtered in a war once in every thirty years or fifty years.
See, how pigs are taken into butchery in flocks and how
they are slaughtered.
Similarly, younger generations are taken as groups into

schools and colleges without being allowed to live with
their parents, so that they are trained like pigs into the
mechanical perfection of what we are proud of calling
education. And then they are electrocuted in big groups
in the name of international wars and bombardment. The
pigs are trained as armies and the fighters of each nation
to make one nation fight the other so that the bigger nations
can purchase the smaller nations and make man a slave
of man. Once again there will be the repetition of Egypt
and Moses. So, we are ahead of a big Exodus. Almost
everyone is criminal enough to be an Egyptian in its ancient
sense. And every Pharaoh is trying to purchase another
race or nation. And now there must be a leader who can
break this competition and lead people to real freedom
which is not at all political freedom. Political freedom
is a myth and a false promise. We have seen how politics
is a miserable failure during these fifty, sixty years, the
politician every year promises you everything only to leave
you more and more helpless.
So, once again try to understand the eternal values that
are already there in you and know how the set up of family
makes you disciplined. How each family can train its own
child and how each family can get its own discipline by
training its own child and how each family can work as
the brick of a big house which can be called 'the house
of the Lord' where everyone can live as living beings on
this earth. When viewed from this point of view, there
is nothing that can discipline you except your own work.
And prayer which is away from work is only deception,
that is deceiving oneself. See, how we pray to the Lord

on Sundays and how we do not follow the Lord. The Lord
said, "Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself". We are ready to
pray to the Lord on Sunday but we are not ready to love
our neighbours as ourselves. The Lord says, "If anyone
slaps you at one cheek, show the second cheek". But when
we pray to the Lord in our heart we believe that the Lord
is a great fool, because we never want to follow what He
says. We don't have the courage enough to think that we
live if we behave like that. Try to know your work at home,
in the office and in the business organisation you work.
Understand that any piece of work is a prayer when
done with a spirit of offering. You offer it, everything to
the value of the first point of the triangle, that is work;
'impersonal' work for the public. Work not for anyone,
not for anyone who can be called your own brother or friend
or the one who belongs to your own nation or your own
family. But work for the public whom you do not know.
When in the post office he is selling the cards and the
covers, see how he sells them to everyone, not only to his
own fellows, brothers, father and sisters. Suppose, there
is a newly married young man working in the office and
his wife is away at her father's house and suppose he is
love-sick with his wife, he wants to see his wife very much
but he is working in the post office. Is it good for him
to say, "I sell cards and covers for those who are only love-
sick. I do not sell cards to those who are separated from
their wives." Is it true? Is it good? What happens? He
will be kicked out and a good man will be appointed there
in the post office. So, we have to do our work impersonally,
not with a view to serving people whom we like. In a

small scale we can serve people whom we like but as a
general rule we have to work for people whom we do not
know. And it is that work that purifies us. When we
understand that this work is real worship, that is the real
prayer. There are people who think that prayer through
lips is not necessary. That prayer through hands, work
through hands is the only necessity. That's also not correct.
Prayer through lips makes us remember and understand
the work we have to do. But our prayer through lips should
not be insincere but it should be only what we work and
not what we speak. This is called the discipline through
work and realisation through work, when any piece of work
becomes a part of your spiritual discipline with a spirit
of offering. It is an offering to the Lord who is there in
the form of all these people before you. If you think that
they are people, you are involved. If you know that the
Lord is in the form of these people, you have your way
for redemption and salvation. In the Indian scriptures it
is said that every work has its own defects and its own
involvements. But it should be offered into the sacred fire,
the fire is what we call 'offering or a sense of offering'.
Dedication to God is called 'The Sacred Fire'. When we
offer our work into that Fire it becomes impersonal and
universal public work in its true sense. This work will
give discipline to us, this work becomes prayer in our life
and this work forms the path for our redemption and
salvation. Without this, there is no liberation. Mere
knowledge of things can never give us redemption. Mere
utterance of good prayers will not give us redemption.
Realisation of the prayer uttered through our lips should

be through our work and when our work is done in terms
of prayer and when we do not know who receives the results
of our work, then it is the real type of work and
automatically the remuneration will be there. And the
personal comforts can be automatically purchased with the
remuneration, not to stop there but to keep on working.
Our body wants food only to work. Work is not for our
body to eat. This is the equation that the ancients have
given. A proper understanding of this equation and realising
it in work, is what is called 'Karma Yoga' or Yoga practised
through work. Thank You All for the opportunity you have
given. This is the true spirit of Karma Yoga described in
the Upanishads and the Bhagawad Gita. And any relevant
questions about the topic are welcome.
* * *
Question : What must we think about the work we have
to do for army? When somebody must work
for the army, what must we think about it?
Ans : You mean joining with the army?
Question : Working for the army.
Ans : Since the value of defence is discovered by man
to protect the civilians it is as sacred as any other work
and we need not have any second thoughts about working
in the army.
Question : When you are working, when you repair some
material of the army and you know that those
objects will kill people, is it a good thing or not?
Ans : When army kills people it is better for us to leave

the cities and go to live in the forest. Armies are intended
to kill armies, that was the ancient law. But during these
sixty or seventy years mankind has advanced in civilisation
so much that warfare permits to bomb the civilians and
the cities. So under the present circumstances we can refuse
to work for the factories of weapons. But that gains nothing.
It is our duty to make a loud representation that no civilian
of any country requires war. And a large scale refusal of
working in the weapons' factories should be organised, and
that is what is going to take place. But work in itself is
not bad. War as is understood by advanced 20th century
is very bad. Because the purpose of war is to protect the
people who cannot protect themselves. But, now that we
have reached the beastly state of bombarding the civilians,
we have every right to rebel and refuse only in the interests
of civilians of any country. But the movement should be
powerful enough to make the international political
organisation paralyse. Otherwise, a mere sloganising will
make the things worse.
Question : Is it difficult to live according to our own way
in this modern world?
Ans : Not at all difficult when we really want it. It is only
to enjoy what we really want in a healthy and a happy way
that we are born. Nothing stops us in doing so when we
really feel sincere of it on the individual plane. When we
regulate our daily routine and behaviour, according to our
own way of understanding life and if we do not compromise
with our own defects and weaknesses, there is nothing that
can stop us from living according to our own way. When
once you take a decision, you will find the company of

people who are like you in the vast world irrespective of
nation, race and religion. Then you will find that you have
a big association of people like you and you are not alone.
It is not at all difficult and that has been my experience
during the past 30 years. I too live in the modern world
but I am living according to my ideals and understanding
of life. I find no need till today to have a compromise
with anyone about my own beliefs. At the same time I
found no need to insult anyone or render anyone feel
inconvenient with my own belief, even with respect to my
food and habits. So, it is not at all impossible when we
are very much ready to realise our likings into our actions.
Question : Can the impersonal work filter our emotions
and rectify our feelings?
Ans : Yes, certainly. It is the only way to rectify our feelings.
And not only that it is the only way to purify our emotions.
When the nurse in the hospital finds so many sick people
suffering, when the nurse begins to serve them and do
everything to their bodies, it is the only way to purify the
emotions of sex. At the end the person finds himself free
and above the polarity of sex. Suppose, we sit in our room,
close our eyes and try to conquer our own feelings of sex,
it is not possible even after thirty years, because instead
of getting ourselves free from sex thoughts, we are trying
to meditate upon sex thoughts that we have to be free from
them. Suppose, I have too much of impulses of anger,
what happens when I sit down and meditate that I should
get rid of anger? I am only meditating my anger and I
grow more and more restless that I am not free from anger.
But when I throw myself into a company where hundred

people are working and when I begin to behave in my
foolish and idiotic way with them, when they begin to
regulate me in my actions, sometimes manhandling me or
sometimes using foul language against me, after ten years
I find myself more fit. I find that I am free from the impulses
of my outburst of anger. So, it is only by applying ourselves
to some public work and being conscious that the work
is worship, by this two-fold activity we can purify ourselves.
If the purification is only on the mental plane, in the prayer
of mental prayer and intellectual prayer, we cannot get
freedom. Neither mechanical work nor philosophical
attitude is enough to purify us. Work realised in philosophical
attitude is the only path left to purify ourselves. There is
no second alternative to anyone in this world today. If I
speak of charity my mind will not be purified. If I begin
to do some charity on the physical plane then only my mind
begins to get purified of the emotions and the selfishness.
That is the importance of the Karma Yoga, the way of
working with double application, that is application of the
work and the application of the attitude. Work without
attitude becomes mechanical work, attitude without work
becomes only utopia. And work coupled with attitude
forms the real prayer. It is the only method to purify us.
Question : What do you think of unemployment?
Ans : Work is not an employment. Work need not be always
an employment. When you are ready to do some useful
work to anyone, you do not have the need of a government
or an employer to give you some work. You will begin
to work and work comes to you. That is how work has
come to me for these twenty years. My son was sick and

the doctor said, it was incurable. I started to work, he was
cured and people wanted me to cure them, I started to cure
them. Enthusiastic people gathered around me and trained
themselves as doctors to cure. And now, we are an
organisation of four thousand families. I expected no
government to give me the job of a doctor or I expected
no charities and no funds from any organisations. I started
with five rupees from my pocket that means 25 Belgium
Francs. And everyone started with his five rupees from
his pocket. Now, there are four thousand families of an
average of five members each, ready with five rupees a
month from their pockets. So, when we begin to work,
we expect no one to give us work. So, work need not
always be employment. Work is absolute work which is
purely divine and cannot be stopped. And sometimes
it may be employment, then we need not reject. But
sometimes it need not be employment. This is my
experience.
Question : Daily in Belgium young teachers teach young
fellows, pupils, during ten hours a day. How
can the teacher spend his time to induce the
better way for the children instead of the worse?
Ans : When the teachers are employed and when they
depend on the employer, exclusively, nothing can be done.
When parents become teachers and teachers appoint
themselves to teach the children pushing aside the
recognition of the schools by the governments, then it is
the parents who want the teachers to teach their children,
and it is the teachers who teach what they really need. You
should stand in a position when you do not care the

education department of the governments. You should be
only a parent and a good citizen and a teacher irrespective
of education department and the government. I started
schools on that line and our teachers have been teaching
our children. They do not require the recognition of the
government and the education department of India. And
we are more successfully teaching our students and children
what they need and what we want to teach them. It is
better than to cry, shout out slogans on the streets and call
ourselves politicians, deceiving ourselves that we are doing
something good to society. I say that we are doing
something good to society. I say that we are more successful
and our children are most successful in life. Once a great
minister of our government visited our school celebration
and gave a lecture. He said, "To how many people can
we give jobs? We the government are not ready to give
jobs to all." Then I answered, "Here are 4000 families
I promise your government that not even one among our
people will trouble your government for some employment.
They teach their children. They train up their children and
they have enough work, you need not employ them." I
asked him, "If you are in need of useful people trained
by us, you can beg us for good and worthy people, but
not demand, demand is different from begging. As a beggar
you can beg for good people and we can donate good
people to you for work." That is the reply I gave to the
great minister of the government, ten years ago. They
require our services and daily they receive our services.
And the result is, we do not want them to appoint us. When
hundred people in this room feel confident that they can

serve their own group in all the ways they are doing to
the government and the offices, it is the beginning of a
new race. The only thing is, we should have the courage
that a human being is expected to have. It is not the
goondaism or the misbehaviour of a loafer on the street
that we want, it is not the misbehaviour and the violence
of an indisciplined ruffian on the street, it is not that, is
needed by us, but it is the courage of rendering your own
useful service to the society that can stand against all the
false obstacles of society and make the society understand
what it wants. When once you make a beginning, when
once you have the courage of your own usefulness to world
and when once you are not a selfish and sluggish fellow
and when once others atleast try to cultivate this attitude,
then the world becomes the most pleasant and most desired
place to live in. The World Mother will be much pleased
with her offspring.
Thank You.
* * *
The Work of the Masters
of Wisdom
esterday evening we understood the scope of what the

Y Masters want us to understand and try to follow in
life. As I told you yesterday there is less to know and
understand, but there is more to do and follow in the path
of the Masters. So to say, there is more practical side than
theory and more of practice than of philosophy and more
of the practice in the daily life than in the temple or in
the church or in the mosque. And I also told you that they
consider all the religions as training schools to make man
enter into the way of life. They make us understand what
is life and what is death, what is birth and what is death,
and what is that which is in between what we call span
of life, and how we are expected to spend this span of life
so that it may be meaningful in the sense that it is livable
and continuously pleasant. To make it pleasant for a day
or two is quite different. But to make it continuously
pleasant and livable is something which requires a path
to follow. That path presupposes the understanding of the
following aspects. They are birth, death, span of life and
wherefrom we come into our birth, whereto we go after
our death. Why is there inevitability of death? Why is there
suffering? What is the meaning and purpose of suffering?
How best can we utilize the aspect of suffering?
146 The Work of the Masters of Wisdom
These are mainly the aspects and when we want to

meet these questions with answers, we are expected to know
the following sciences. If we want answers to these
questions, not on theoretical level but as solutions to our
own problems, then we are expected by the Masters to go
into the following branches of science. We have to know
the Science of the Laws of Nature, and how to differentiate
between man-made laws and the laws of nature and how
not to confuse man-made law with the law of nature. We
must have a clear understanding of a few of the laws of
nature. They are the Law of Cause and Effect, the Law
of Pulsation, the Law of Periodicity, the Law of Continuity
and Break of a Distance etc. Of course each of these has
many branches of science for us to study, but it requires
a longer time to make a systematic study of all these
branches. Seminars for three or four days are not enough
and conferences are intended only to expose the syllabus
of the Masters to our mind. There is no use of trying to
go into the lessons. But it has its own use. When once we
expose the syllabus of Masters to our mind, we can
understand if our mind wants them or not, if we have to
wait for sometime or which branch of these sciences our
mind is inclined to know for the present. Then it is useful
for us to pick up that particular branch in which we are
interested, interest not in the sense of curiosity, but in the
sense of an attitude of continuity to know.
So, our four days seminars of the afternoon have their
own value but the purpose is to expose the syllabus of
ancient wisdom. It is not only ancient but also eternal
wisdom because it is not going to change, because it deals
with the Laws of Creation, the Laws of Cosmo-genesis,

how the cosmos came into existence, and the stages of
cosmo-genesis, that is, how the solar system comes into
existence, how the planets come into existence and how
the atoms on each planet come into existence with the help
of those intelligences whom we call Devas. Atoms journey
through four stages that is the Mineral, Plant, Animal and
Human. Once they reach the stage of human soul to
understand the internal planes of consciousness of the
human being and to understand the tendencies of lower
principles and the truths of higher principles because the
higher principles have no tendencies, they are above
tendencies, above psychology, above individuality and
above personality.
Therefore we are expected to understand all these
things. As human beings we are expected to know our
duties to our neighbours, to our relatives and friends, to
those of the lower kingdoms to remove our ignorance,
because out of our ignorance we believe that they are lower
kingdoms. For example, the minerals, the plants and the
animals are considered as lower than human kingdom.
Until this ignorance is washed off from our minds, we are
expected to make a study and application of these aspects.
So, let us make a beginning and proceed a little bit into
the subject. The very fact that you are pleased to give me
the time for seminars, different from the conferences in
the night, proves somehow that you are interested to go
a little bit deep into the matter. And I sincerely believe
that you do not mind, If I go a little bit deeper into the
matter in the seminars than the conferences in the night,
because generally my experience of 30 years of teaching
of the subject teaches me that classes are more useful than

conferences, in the sense, classes have a sequence in
teaching and learning, in accordance with the practical
difficulties of the understanding of the human mind.
Whereas conferences have another and different type of
value, that is, to rouse sometimes the interest of the
beginners also which may sometimes involve the emotional
aspect also whereas the seminars or the classes do not
essentially involve any emotional aspect because the
purpose involves three steps.
The three steps are as follows- to know, then to see
or experience and then to enter into it, and then finally
to offer oneself to the subject one has learnt, then only
the subject becomes one's own. Otherwise if we only try
to learn and understand, it will be only as useful as the
university classes and subjects. We can purchase education
in the universities, and we can purchase certificates and
degrees in the universities, but we can not purchase wisdom.
The difference between learning and wisdom is, that
learning involves possessing the subject in which process
we continue to be different from the subject we have learnt
till we die. If I want to possess some article, I can not
be the article and the article can not be myself. The very
fact that we want to possess something proves that we want
to be different from what it is. We do not like to get
ourselves identified with the subject we have learnt. That
is what is called learning which is different from wisdom.
Wisdom is self-unfoldment. It is a process which can be
compared with that of a bud becoming a blossom. A bud
can not possess its blossom state. It can not pick up the
flower state and pocket it to itself. It should be prepared
to lose itself into the state of flower. Unless it accepts

to have an ending of the bud state, it can not have the
blossom state. So, in every respect it should be prepared
to offer itself and get lost in what it wants. Another
difference is, learning requires a strong individuality and
a strong personality. Without it, learning is not possible.
Whereas wisdom requires a total offering of the
individuality and the personality. Until one can learn how
to be impersonal, the wisdom about which the Masters
speak is not possible. Therefore the fourth or the last step
is not possible. Therefore the fourth or the last step is
the culmination of wisdom. Now let us try to go into one
or two of these laws.
There are certain basic truths in nature, without
knowing which we can not understand the nature of
creation, without knowing which we can not understand
nature around us. Nature around us should be understood
on the background of the nature of creation. And then
we can know the nature of the earth, and then we can know
the human nature. Then we have the possibility of knowing
the nature of the group to which we belong. And then
the nature of our individuality, that is, our nature which
can be compared with our signature or hand writing which
differs from every other person. Then we should use this
individual nature as a key to enter into the wider nature
once again, just as we use our signature to conduct
something useful in the world. Now if we try to visualize
how the earth is rotating on its own axis, how there are
night and day alternating with us, then we come to know
the first law we are expected to study. It is the Law of
Alternation. Day can not continue without night. Night

can not continue without day. And there is no light without
darkness, no darkness without light. We can understand
the pairs simply because they exist in pairs. Otherwise
we could not have understood their existence at all. This
is what we call the law of alternation in nature. It gives
us the understanding of the Law of Continuity. If something
were to continue it should inevitably have alternation
without which nothing can continue even for a split second.
For example, the alternation of day and night is making
it possible to make the seven days of the week, and then
the thirty days of the month, and then the three hundred
and sixty five days of the year, and we know how the
seasons change, we know how one sunrise differs from
the other, though we have seen many thousands of sunrises
till now. And how the experience of one day differs from
the experience of any other day, so that no two days in
our life are similar. Though we can call them similar they
are not identical. And then the year can exist only because
of this law of alternation. Without alternation there is
neither day nor year, and in between also it is only the
alternation that is working. See how the moon increases
through half month and how there is the full moon. For
example, today and tomorrow we have the full moon. And
then how the moon decreases from the next day until it
makes a total disappearance. And again there is
reappearance of the moon. So, we have once again the
alternation. And we, the part of the whole creation, can
never understand ourselves away from the total creation,
though our ignorance makes us understand as separate
individuals
So, essentially we also show in us all these stages we

see around us. For example, we feel like sleeping after
a duration of activity. And after a duration of sleep,
automatically we wake up. Of course we can not wake
up from sleep, but wakeful state comes to us and it calls
us into consciousness. More correctly it makes us sleep
and it makes us wake up. So, we have the sleep and the
wakeful state in alternation without which we have no span
of life or continuity of existence. If at all we are to live
or continue on this earth, we are permitted to continue only
by an alternation of sleep and wakefulness. Then see how
the respiration is also a process of alternation, that is, we
cannot inhale without exhalation and we cannot exhale
without inhalation. No one can continue to inhale, because
he has great love for oxygen. No one can continue to exhale
because he has great dislike for carbondioxide. This
automatically proves that life has nothing to do with our
likes and dislikes. Unlike our likes and dislikes, life is truth
into which some day or other we are forced to enter by
growing above our likes and dislikes. And see how until
then we create our own pain, sorrow and suffering only
to make the process painful, only to stop and think the
purpose and meaning of pain, and then through our pain,
we understand what we have to do and what we should
not do, because our own doing causes comfort and our
own undoing causes pain to ourselves. And for sometime
we are mistaken to think that others are causing us great
discomfort or pain or sorrow or suffering. And in our
mistaken state, we try to seek for the cause elsewhere, other
than ourselves. For example, the planets who are in reality
our guides and who are helping us, sometimes turn our
enemies. We are trying to find enemies among human

beings. Sometimes we create an imaginative substance
called circumstances, and we wish to believe that it is the
circumstances that are causing us trouble. For sometime
we search and search outside where we find only our
shadows, we deceive ourselves by thinking the shadows
as somebody else. Then we come to the right understanding
and find the meaningfulness of the pain we have; we try
to rectify our wrong procedure and behaviour; then we
understand how to be happy.
So, if we make a closer study of what we call the
duration of time, there is no duration without alternation;
there is no respiration without alternation; there is no heart
beat without alternation. You know the heart beat is double
in its nature, one beat invites impure blood into the heart,
another beat sends the pure blood from the heart into the
muscular system, making it possible to have a continuity
of heart beat. See, how the same law holds good in
everything. This is only an example of the many laws that
are working in nature, different from our intellectual and
emotional aberrations and falsehoods we create. So, by
trying to understand these laws, we will be able to clear
off the intellectual and emotional aberrations. When the
sheet of our understanding becomes clear, the Masters may
present us a new law on the sheet for us to understand.
See how the same law of alternation holds good in bigger
cycles. After certain span of life we go into a state called
death about which we make many imaginations, many
stories and many types of heaven and hell which is nothing
but our own imagination and fairy tale. Everyone has his
own heaven and hell created for himself and by himself.

And then there is a duration of time after death about which
we do not know practically anything. After duration we
wake up once again as if from sleep into a new and tender
body, the body of a child. Again we grow up and have
a duration or a span of life and again we go into death.
Then we understand the law of alternation is working in
bigger cycles also. So, we come to understand that this
law is inevitable.
The same thing holds good for the earth upon which
we are living. The earth has its own birth and its own
span and its own death. And the sun of our solar system,
in total, has his own birth, his own span and his own death.
There are as many solar systems as there are living beings
on our earth planet. Every solar system has its own birth,
span and death, just as every one of us has his own birth,
span and death and every death is only a process of
transformation which has a double purpose. One purpose
is recovery, reinforcement, refreshment and reabsorption
of the required energies, just as we do in our sleep. Of
course we do not do because we sleep and we do not know.
The lungs respire of their own accord when we are sleeping
like dogs and the heart pulsates and circulates blood when
we are sleeping like cows and bulls. So, our mind and our
knowledge and our understanding are of no use for us to
live on this earth. Our understanding is useful only for
certain likes and dislikes and, to gather some information
in the name of education, to create head load and hyper
tension in the name of education, and to enjoy the taste
of food, drink, sleep and sex. Except for these things our
wakeful intellect is not at all useful for higher purposes.

For example when there is some trouble to the respiration
or circulation of the heart, our intellect has no value at
all to save us from the trouble, including the intellect of
the best physician, doctor and the healer, because he is also
a helpless human fellow like ourselves, who is sleeping
while his lungs are breathing. So, this is the limitation
of our intelligence and intellect. When we make a
pondering over our own sleep, we understand that we are
sleeping and we are different from the person who is not
sleeping in us. There is in us some more person who is
not sleeping, who is conducting the functions of respiration
and heartbeat and also the functions of digestion. For
example, if Krishnamacharya eats potatoes and sleeps, the
digestive system can never sleep. The fellows go on
working in the digestive system so that by the time the
next morning the fellow wakes up, the digestive system
has done its duty. So, the fellows who are working in the
digestive system office can never sleep. If they sleep, if
the persons in the respiratory office sleep, if the fellows
in the heartbeat and circulation begin to sleep with us, what
will be the result? The movement we sleep, we die.
Sleep is only to a part of our cells. That is what we
call the mind and the five senses. And for the rest of the
person, who is inside, there is no sleep. Then we come
to understand that existence does not belong to mind and
senses, but it belongs to the background I AM. The mind
and senses form only a part of the fellow. Like this we
begin to understand more and more when we bestow some
attention on one of the laws of nature, for example, the
law of alternation explained by the Masters of wisdom.

Then we understand that we are continuing to live only
because of the law of alternation. And without law of
alternation there is no continuity. Then by applying our
commonsense we understand we have a continuity of
existence because we are living through sleep and waking
up in the morning after some hours of sleep. Then the same
commonsense tells us that we continue to exist after what
we call death. It is a matter of commonsense for sometime
and it is a matter of real experience after some time.
Nature's laws can be understood in three or four stages.
The first stage is what we call disbelief or negation. For
some births and rebirths we refuse to accept that there is
life beyond death and before birth. Therefore we refuse
to accept the law of reincarnation. This is the first stage.
The more we begin to refuse the acceptance, the more we
are forced to bestow our attention upon the problem,
because refusing something or disliking something very
strongly is an automatic process of bringing our attention
to the problem which nature uses upon us. When the
consciousness is properly focussed upon the problems by
refusing it for some births and rebirths, then it begins to
believe. But this belief can not continue or stand because
it is not faith. Belief is not at all faith. Belief is what
we call conviction. That means a taste to believe. We
want to believe something. And that is not at all belief.
So we believe the law of nature, for example, the law of
incarnation as a religious belief. That is, we want to believe
because we want to become better. This is a false belief.
And again and again it will be shattered whenever an
intellectual fellow argues against it, we lose faith. And

again after sometime we begin to develop faith. So, we
live through births and rebirths in a process of belief and
no belief. Then we come to understand and suspect through
certain incidents that there is life after death. The moment
we begin to understand the law of alternation, then we begin
to feel the truth of existence of life after death, because
now we know, through what is called analogy, that a period
of sleep alternates a period of wakefulness. So, a period
of longer sleep after death alternates with our span of life
after which we wake up again in a new and tender body
in the form of what we call rebirth. From that time onwards
we begin to grow faith in rebirth, not according to any
religion, not according to any political party, not according
to idea of any group of people but according to the
impulsion and intuition, because without any alternative
we begin to feel truth of it. Only from that time onwards
something can be called faith which is greater than belief.
Belief is a conscious process of applying some tension,
whereas faith is a transformation which takes place from
our centre to circumference.
Now, after faith is developed, we begin to understand
birth and death more correctly and more scientifically.
Previously we had only an emotional way of understanding
these two aspects. When there is a child-birth there is some
happy emotion and disturbance in the parents. Whereas
the fellow himself does not know anything except waking
up. He has no understanding of his awakening. And about
death we have our own ideas which are nothing but
falsehoods and some emotions and a most unscientific way
of understanding which conditions our span of life before

we die. Many of our acts in life are death-conditioned.
For example, a fellow feels like earning much money before
he dies. He thinks, "Before I die I have to earn for my
family." Another fellow thinks, "Before I die I must educate
my son." A third fellow thinks, "Before I die I should get
my children married." Another fellow thinks, "Before I
die, let me complete the building of my house." So, in
the minds of many people there is a phrase "before I die",
"before I die", "before I die". So, many minds are
essentially death conditioned. This is because of lack of
a scientific understanding of what we call death. We
consider death an incident whereas it is a process of
transformation. And we believe we cease to exist after
death. In fact we exist through death and we begin to
properly understand death in the light of these facts, when
we understand the law of alternation and the law of
continuity. This is how the laws of nature, presented to
us by the Masters of wisdom, will reveal to us everything
step by step.
Yes, and then we see the technological and scientific
world developing one side. And we try to learn the alphabet
of that world also. Every subject has its own alphabet, just
as a every language has its own alphabet. The scientific
and technological alphabet is different. And after a certain
time we begin to enter into to it. For example, we come
to know the magnetism, electricity, the nuclear science,
electronics and radio active elements. Gradually we come
into touch with these subjects and when we begin to apply
the above laws we come to understand the existence of
some more laws in nature. For example, the law of
magnetism which makes us understand the law of polarity.

How likes and dislikes exist in us, how they affect us and
how health and ill health alternate in us. According to
law of alternation, how good mood and bad mood alternate
according to the presence of others. For example, when
we see some people we are instinctively more happy and
when we see some others, we feel discomfort. This mental
symptom which is a symptom of a disease is what is called
'likes and dislikes' and we understand it as the result of
the law of polarity. We have our own poles which attract
us and our own poles which repel us. And then gradually
we come to understand that how electricity is related to
magnetism, not only in the mechanical, technical and
technological world, but also in us, that is the kingdom
of the living beings and the kingdom of the activities of
this planet where the grand scientists of electricity and
magnetism exist on this earth. We understand they exist
in every atom of this earth.
Every atom contains a team of scientists whom we
call, the intelligences of nature, who know the laws of
nature, who work out everything according to the laws of
nature and who teach the laws of nature by giving their
presence to us by existing in ourselves. They begin to lodge
in us; from the time we understand this fact, we will find
our own lodge of spiritual activity. Otherwise, eventhough
we have a lodge or a temple in the physical plane, it is
only idolatry and sheer ignorance that rule us. We can have
a ritualistic hall, we can have a temple. But unless we know
the intelligences who are taking their lodge in ourselves,
the outward lodge of brick and mortar is as useless as
anything. When we know, we begin to understand the reality
and the existence of these intelligences. I will give you
one example. When fertilization takes place, you know that

there is only a spermatozoa of fertilization which contains
no bone, no skull, no vertebral column, no muscle, no nerve
and no anatomy professor, no cardiologist, no physician,
no doctor. And from this, in the course of a few months,
something develops with all the details, anatomical details
of the human embryo, by studying which the embryology
professor knows about the one thousandth of it and teaches
it as great wisdom in the universities. And another professor
understands one thousandth of it in the name of human
anatomy and teaches it as a great branch of wisdom in the
universities. See when one thousandth of the activity is
enough to be a subject in a university, how many
universities are required to know all the branches of
embryology! Not only they have to know the development
that is taking place in embryology, but also they have to
get convinced of the intelligences and the great grand
scientists that are working in the embryo.
For example, there is a professor of numbers who is
working in the embryo. Unfortunately, we believe that
numbers are discovered by the human beings, for example,
a mathematical professor. But you know that the embryo
develops two hands and two legs. And the same number
of bones in the vertebral column and two bones in the
forehand and one bone in the upper hand and two lungs,
one heart, two eyes, two ears and two nostrils and only
one tongue, no mistake and thirty two teeth. If someone
calls it coincidence, we have to pity his donkey logic. So,
we are forced to accept the presence of a professor who
knows numbers and who knows counting in the embryo.
And then call him by some name. Do you know what he
does? He helps the development of the embryo and as the

work is complete, he enters the house he has built. And
he has his own apartment constructed for himself in what
we call the brain cells. And he begins to stay there and
live with the fellow as long as he lives. Then he begins
to teach numbers to the little fellow who is born into this
earth, long before the fellow learns numbers and
multiplication tables in the school. It is a pleasant wonder
to know how the fellow knows from the internal teacher,
before he learns from the external teacher. If you call two
little fellows who do not know numbers and who do not
know even the names of numbers and give one fellow two
chocolates and the other fellow four chocolates the first
fellow is angry with you. Are you not convinced that he
knows numbers? So this professor consciousness, begins
to teach the numbers to the fellow through a medium,
through a science which we call instinct. Till now there
is no university which can teach us the science which we
call 'instinct'. And there is no psychology professor till now
who knows that instinct is a branch of big science, because
the psychologist is also suffering from psychological
problems like any of us. Sometimes he also suffers from
insomnia and has no solution except swallowing dirty
tablets like tranquilizers. So, he knows only as much as
you and I know and not better.
So, the Masters recognised that a professor exists in
the embryo who works as number consciousness and they
called him in the ancient scriptures Kapila. If you read
the ancient Indian scriptures, a fellow named Kapila
described as the founder of the wisdom of numbers. And
there is another professor who works in embryo from the
time of fertilization. He works out the shape consciousness
of the embryo. If the spermatozoon belongs to human being,

this fellow develops only human body in the mother's
womb. If it belongs to a dog, he develops only dog's body,
not human body. So, the embryo of every creature on this
earth and the seed of every tree on this earth has this
professor in itself so that it develops the body into its own
species and not the other so that a pig or a dog is not born
to a human being. Only a human body is born to a human
being. This is what we can call shape-consciousness. He
is called in the scriptures Viswakarma. And some of the
ancient scientists called him the great architect of the
universe about whom we can think of in the ritualistic halls.
We strike hammers without knowing anything about him
at all, because we are interested only in the gathering of
the ritual but not in the ritual. We are interested in the social
aspects and its evils and having the pride of secrecy and
nothing else. We are not at all interested in going into the
matter. Therefore, except the noise of the hammers nothing
is left with us by way of wisdom. But in the ancient days,
really scientific days, when there were real scientific
laboratories which were called the mystery temples, these
things were taught by way of initiation which was a highly
scientific process of teaching of which we the human beings
of the twentieth century have no idea at all. The process
is called initiation. We use the word many thousands of
times as blindly as we use the hammers in the rituals and
as blindly as we use the name of the great architect of the
universe.
So, the Masters teach us there is what is called Number
Consciousness in the embryo and also there is what is called
Shape Consciousness of the embryo. This fellow, the shape
consciousness is described as the poet, the court poet of

nature, because he presides over the shapes and beauty.
Then we come to understand the many dimensions, many
strange beings that are working in and around us, many
intelligences who are not human beings but who are in
the background of the human beings. Again we come to
understand a little bit of wisdom of the Masters, that is,
the existence of these beings. And the Masters called them
the beings of the Deva kingdom. The scriptures called them
angels that are angels Kerubim and in some languages
cherubims working in the garden of the God. Since we
ourselves do not know whether we really believe in these
scriptures or not at all, we find these names in scriptures
only as the imaginary creatures, that is, the stories in the
fairy tales because we are most undeveloped about the
magnitude of the scriptures. Our evolution, the present stage
of evolution of humanity is not enough to understand the
grandeur of the scriptures. Now the Masters are just trying
to stimulate the higher nature and higher consciousness
of humanity a little bit enough to suspect the existence of
such fellows. And then the syllabus teaches us that these
Devas fabricate the solar systems and some of these Devas
fabricate the planets and our earth planet also and then
atoms which include the Mineral kingdom, Plant, Animal
and Human kingdom, after completing the evolution of
which we are expected to join the Deva kingdom and work
as scouts in the Deva kingdom to conduct the functions
of nature and to cooperate with the planetary activity of
this earth.
This is a part of the syllabus of the study of a subject
which has no name in the present world till now and which
has no name in any university, because no existing
university has any stature to understand and teach the

subject and no professor of any university has any idea
of this, because he has no stature to teach this subject.
In future there will be universities that are intended to teach
this science. There will be only a very few students, because
the remaining fellows, many of us are afraid of life and
how to live. We are more afraid of death and a little more
afraid of life. Consequently we are very busy with other
subjects, for example, our livelihood and to live away life
when fear is hunting like a dog, to live a busy, uncultured
and most civilized life, not able to enjoy life but live away
a quick and restless life like a vomiting. So, when we come
to a stage when we are not afraid of our life or death and
when we reach such a degree of evolution when we can
offer ourselves to this subject, then we will join as one
of the students of this university for which we can make
some preparation in this birth so that we can do our humble
help to our children and grand children who belong to this
century of wisdom and to whom this subject belongs. So,
let us try to know the syllabus of the Masters of wisdom
and try to render our service to those wise fellows who
belong to the next generation. Thank you all. We will take
up the class tomorrow and continue. No, let us not have
the taste of clapping the hands, because we are too tiny
to understand the syllabus of the Masters. Silence is
expected of us through which they teach us and also the
habit of clapping the hands in the meeting belongs to the
political meetings, though we do not know it. Excuse me
if I request you not to do it in my gatherings.
Thank You.
* * *
To Die is Not to Die
rothers and sisters! Today's subject 'To Die Is not to

B Die' is all engrossing. That is the subject given.
We have to know the right way of understanding what we
call death, and making the right type of preparation not
to die but to pass through death to a stage beyond. There
is much literature about death in the world. Every nation
has its own scripture. Every scripture has its own literature
about death and life beyond death. And there is no one
in this world who is not conditioned by this idea of death.
There are people who are not conditioned by the idea of
birth because at the time of birth no one knows that he
is born. He is not grown enough to think that there is
something like birth. But everyone who is grown up has
an idea of death. Sometimes it works in a positive direction
to produce a World Teacher like Gauthama, the Buddha.
He had been kept in ignorance about death since childhood
and after a certain age suddenly he could understand that
there was something like death. That gave him such a shock
that he began to search for the real path of man; he could
bring enlightenment to humanity. But everyone cannot be
a Buddha. Everyone has his own or her own idea of death.
Often they are neither true nor are they scientific. In many
To Die is Not to Die 165
cases they are emotional and sentimental. In majority of

the cases a fear of death exists at the bottom most layer
of consciousness, without removing which one cannot
experience happiness in its true sense. Those, who are
experiencing happiness, are experiencing in their own way
because they are all 'death' conditioned at the bottom of
their consciousness. Almost everyone says to himself as
he is growing in age, "Before I die I should earn good
fortune, before I die I should have a big house, before I
die I should clear off all my debts, before I die I should
prepare everything good for my wife, before I die I should
perform the marriage of my children." So, in many minds
there is the idea 'before I die, before I die.' Whether he
utters it vocally or not, whether he feels it distinctly on
the mental plane or not, by birth everyone is death
conditioned. All the actions and activity tend towards a
wall, believing that they should stop at a wall where there
is a dead end. And until this wall is removed or a gate
way is prepared in this wall, no one boasts of experiencing
of happiness. Because the bottom most layer of
consciousness is death conditioned, how can one be happy?
There is a little story in the scriptures about death. A
son was observing his father doing a holy sacrifice. The
father was distributing all his treasures among those who
came to him becasue he took it as his sacred duty in the
sacrifice.
The son was very young, about 12 years old and asked
his father,
"Father, you are giving everything to others."
He said, "Yes, this is my austerity, so says my sacrifice".

Then the son asked,
"Do you give away everything that belongs to you?"
The father said, "Ah, Why?"
Then the son asked,
"Do you also give me away to someone else?"
Then the father was in hesitation. For two minutes he
hesitated and then answered, 'Yes'.
And then the son asked,
"To whom do you propose to give me?"
The father had no ready answer, no ready reply. He
was thinking and it would take a few minutes for him to
reply. In the meanwhile the son asked his father thrice the
same question. And then the father got irritated and said,
"I will give you to the Lord of Death".
Then the son smiled and said,
"When do you give me to Him?"
Father said, "Wait".
Son said, "I cannot wait. I want to approach the Lord
of Death and know how death occurs. What death is. And
why it is there. I demand that you should immediately give
me to the Lord of Death". Saying so, the son added,
"I take it for granted that you have given me to death,
I am going." And he went.
Straight he went to the Lord of Death. He entered the

city of death. Of course, the story is symbolic, I will explain
what it is. He entered the city of Death and enquired about
the Lord of Death. In Sanskrit, the Lord of Death is 'Yama'.
The secret lies that the first step of Yoga is also the same
fellow. I told you there are eight steps in Yoga, the first
is Yama, which means regulations of life activity. The story
means that death occurs to give us regulation. Then we
can ask, "If death gives us regulation, when are we to live
and regulate ourselves?" Then the answer is "Death follows
birth and a better body is given next time. Whenever we
spoil our constitution with our ill behaviour, there are
disease, old age, decay and death. Death is there because
it wants to give us again a tender, beautiful body. Just as
after 5 or 6 years we throw the old car in the junk to purchase
a new car, Death exists in nature to give a new opportunity
with a better body again to practise regulation. So, the Lord
of Death is what is called the process of regulation. The
fellow directly went to the city of Death. Here, the word
death means change. Can you understand any minute in
your life that has no change? We believe that the blood
and flesh and bones in our body are there continuously.
We believe that they are ours. My wife believes that this
is my hand. But we are happy with our hand because we
are foolish not to understand that everything is changing
every moment. If we remember that every second in our
body, atoms are going out and new atoms are entering
immediately. Understand that this is not our body. And the
wife understands that there is nothing like her husband's
hand, because every moment things are going away and
coming in. It is very difficult to understand the speed of

the matter in our body. Unless there is that speed of change
of matter, we have no possibility to live on this earth.
We are living here because matter is changing in the
body. Every day when we eat and drink, all the matter is
going out again, and every few seconds we are breathing
air in but breathing air out also. We cannot claim that the
air in the lungs is ours, but if we are asked to utter our
name, we have to utter only with the same air and breathe.
See the ridiculous part of it. We have to utter our name
with the air which is not ours, which is not inside. It is
coming in and going out but still we say 'myself'. So, the
idea of myself is only an idea and there is nothing in the
material aspect of the body. So, this understanding is called
the gateway of death and also the city of the Lord of Death.
But it is kept in darkness because many of us are not
prepared to remember it. Even though we understand it,
we are inclined to forget about it and live in this world
believing that the Kgs weight in our body is constant. For
example, the earth is going around the Sun with tremendous
speed and going around itself also with a great speed. We
know it but we are inclined to believe that the earth is stable
and we want to stand on this earth, stable. Without this
idea we cannot lead our life on this earth because we are
habituated to earth life and we are not yet habituated to
the finer life, which is more true. Similarly, it is the same
with this body also. We are habituated to believe that this
body is constant and we are inclined to believe that this
is our abode. So, we live in it. And we believe in its
existence. Not only that, we do many things on the basis
that we live in this body for a long time, we begin to build

our house believing that we live for long time in that house.
Unless we have this belief we cannot live and do things,
yet in a layer of mind we know that this is not true.
There is an eternal existence in which all these changes
are taking place. There is a background on which the worlds
are coming and going. So, the boy went straight into that
city and he enquired about the Lord of Death. And his
officers told him that he was very busy for three days and
the boy was asked to wait. That means that our existence
is three fold-matter, force and mind, the boy was asked
to understand the three layers of existence. So, he was asked
to wait for three days, because the Lord of Death was very
busy. So, he waited and then the Lord came and said,
"Boy, how do you do? Are you not afraid of me?"
The boy said, "Bonjour" and smiled.
He said, "What do you want?"
Then the boy asked him, "What is there in the room?
The door is open but nothing is seen, everything is dark".
Then Yama said, "It is called 'dark room'. It is called
the room of death".
The boy asked, "I came all the way here to know what
is there in that room."
And Yama said, "It is very dangerous, don't question
about it. All the people in this world are afraid of that
darkness. You are a little boy, and there is much career
for you still. Take care of your future. Therefore, don't
question about that darkness You can question me about
any branch of learning. Yo can question me about soul,

about God, about creation, about sun and moon, about
astronomy, astrology, any science, any arts. But don't
question about that darkness. That is called death, people
enter it and no one knows what happens. I am taking care
of this room, except myself no one knows what is there
inside."
Then the boy stood in adoration of Yama and said,
"For this same reason I came to you. There is no one
in this world who knows what is there in that room, you
are the only one who knows it. That is why I take you
as my Master who can teach me what is there inside."
Then Yama was in trouble, he said, "Till now nobody
questioned about it. There are many fine things in life. You
can question about them. For example, you ask me what
is marriage, I will tell you. You ask me what is child birth,
I will tell you. You ask me what is sex life, I will tell
you. You ask me what is supper and dinner, I can explain
you."
Then he said, "Only for this purpose I came here. And
I have already decided you are my Master, I hope Masters
don't disappoint disciples."
And then Yama said, "You know that there are rulers
and administrators in this world. I will send you back as
a great ruler and administrator for hundred years. But, don't
question about it."
Then the boy said, "What happens after hundred
years?"
Then he said, "Death".

Then the boy said, "That's why I am questioning about
it".
Then Yama said, "I will give you thousand years".
And the boy asked, "What happens after thousand
years?"
Then Yama said, "I will give you ten thousand years".
Then he said, "What after that?"
Then Yama was sweating!
And the boy smiled,
"Therefore, you tell me what it is".
Then Yama said, "You are the one disciple who
deserves initiation into that dark room. It is not to
discourage you that I talked all these things. It is only to
find out whether you stop in the middle and go away or
not, because people live in this world to know many things,
to do many things, to discover many things, to achieve many
things. Foolish fellows die in their attempts. So, they forget
about their journey, they are attracted by many valuable
things in this world. They are engrossed in their own plans
which appear very, very valuable to them. Some of them
are engrossed in their wives and children. Many of them
are foolish enough to get engrossed in their ideals. They
create their own ideals and they die; their minds die with
their bodies; their ideals die with their mind. So, many
people do not pursue the thing, they do not understand life
from birth to death, they do not have the awareness of
existence. The fellow who has a continuous awareness
of his own existence is the only fellow who can know what
is there in the dark room." And he said, "I will take you
into that room". And he made him cross the arc of that
room. On the top of the door there was the picture of a
skeleton, a skull and then the word 'death' and then a dagger
was falling and rising to cut the neck of any fellow who
puts his head there. Then, Yama said, "Put your head". The
boy put his head and the dagger stopped. Then Yama said,
"Look here the dagger stopped. It stops for those who
do not fear. It inevitably cuts the necks of those who do
not want death. That is why it is cutting the necks of millions
and millions of fellows who come to this earth. But with
your neck it stopped there. That means you can enter. Come
on, come inside." He took him in. There was nothing in
the room. It was only empty space and he took him into
the room and asked the boy to look at the same gate from
inside. There was the picture of a room where a maternity
was being conducted and a lady having labour pains, a
child being born and crying. People were taking the child
into their hands and smiling that there was a child. He
said, "It is the same gate which is called birth from the
other side. So, through this gate people cross but because
they fear this gate, they become unconscious before they
touch the gate, and then when they wake up, they wake
up as children in the next birth. This is the gate which
I am asked to look after and you are the first one who could
know it". And then he taught the boy many things, of
course. Now, we are concerned only with this particular
aspect. To know about this in the right way, I will give
you a little example.
There was a big circus tent, where circus was played

every evening. Many lions, tigers, elephants and horses
were there. Many persons were there. We went to the
circus in Geneva. We enjoyed the play. After six months
we went to Paris. We saw the same circus in Paris. We
went to see the circus. We saw the same animals, same
persons and the same fellow issuing the tickets and the
same fellow who was tearing the tickets and the same fellow
with a big wart on his face showing us seats where to go
and sit. How could the same fellow come to Paris? So,
there is a group of people who tour from place to place.
They have some animals with them, they have some
servants with them, they have some material to erect the
tent with them. So, when they complete the circus in Geneva
when they move to another place, what is the procedure
they follow? Do they take the whole tent from Geneva
to Paris? They will pull everything from the earth, they
will fold all the tents together, they make it convenient
to make a journey and they shut the animals in the cages
and they have their own way of doing things. And we could
not see how they travelled from Geneva to Paris. We can
see the performance in Geneva if we purchase a ticket,
we can see the same performance in Paris by purchasing
a ticket, but we can't observe how they travel from Geneva
to Paris, unless we begin to travel with them. Compare
our life with circus tent with many fellows working inside,
whom we call the Devas that is the Angels and the Arch
Angels, doing their duties in the body. And after the circus
is finished in this town, they take what is all necessary
from this and they travel to another place. We cannot see
how they travel because we care only to purchase a ticket
and see the performance. We have not yet proposed to

join the circus company. Unless we join as one of the
members of the circus company, we cannot know how the
whole journey takes place, we cannot know how the shift
occurs. When they go, do they take the sand and the earth
and the clay from Geneva to Paris? No. because sand and
earth are available in Paris also. After all there will be
difference in sand and earth. So, the minerals of the body
are not carried from birth to birth, the minerals are left
there which we call the corpse. It is busy in its process
of decomposition. We wrongly call it decomposition. But
the minerals are being replaced to their original places.
They are temporarily borrowed to serve the purpose of the
soil of the circus and again in another place some minerals
are selected and they are being attracted into the mother's
womb, and this body is being constructed. It is only a
matter of colour difference from race to race and from
nation to nation, just as there is colour difference between
the soil of Geneva and the soil of Paris, but the same fellows
are conducting the same circus. You will find the continuity
of the circus. Similarly, you will find the continuity of
life from birth to birth. There are things that are left away
and there are things, that are taken. And because we can
see the things that are left away, we cannot call it a change,
we cannot call it a shift from one place to another, we call
it death. We understand it as a total end of things. This
is one aspect of it.
On which plane of understanding do we exist? From
one point of view, death is true as anything. See, how
some people are totally and mentally and emotionally
affected by death how they are cruelly separated by death

from beloved ones. They have great shocks and violent
reactions which will exist life long for some people. So,
those who are going to die feel the shock of people who
have died. It is the truth of it. Everyone is going to die.
It may be after ten years, after twenty years, after thirty
years, but he feels the death of a fellow who dies earlier.
See, if you observe the sheep that is being carried to
butchery if there is something for it to eat, if there is fine
grass, it pulls to that side to enjoy the taste of the grass.
But within a few minutes it is going to be cut into pieces,
yet it wants to eat grass and enjoy the taste. This nice
way of deception is true with the earth life. Unless this
self-deception is there, unless this grand illusion is there,
life is not livable on this earth. But this illusion is only
a place for us to get trained to know the higher truths.
Ignorance is a necessary platform to reach knowledge but
it is not a place where we spend time eternally. The egg
shell is not a permanent abode for the chick inside. It is
a protection until the chick solidifies and takes a shape.
Unless there is the egg shell the chicken would not have
formed at all. But once formed it is the breakage of the
shell that gives the chicken required expansion of wings.
In the same way, the illusions of this earth life, the emotions,
the complexes and the tensions of mind- all these are
necessary to protect us to survive on this earth, to fight
the life of competition until we begin to know the truth
of life. But someday or the other, the shell is to be broken
and the illusions of life are to be broken, truth is to be
sought. And before that stage, after the stage of ignorance,
there is a stage of transition which gives great restlessness,
great pain, great suffering and all this suffering helps us

to progress in our way. So, we are shunted forward in
the next step to have a better understanding and better way
of behaving and knowing the meaning of birth and death.
So, when we pass a span of life, we are expected to
know the meaning of the span and emotional understanding
of what we call death. To give us experience, death occurs
many thousands of times to everyone of us; a change is
expected to be properly understood by everyone of us. A
similar phenomenon is given to us everyday in the night
to understand what death is. What we call sleep is in no
way different from death. The only difference is, we wake
up in the same body from sleep, we wake up in some other
body from death. So, before what we call death, we have
thousands of deaths taking place in the name of our sleep.
Suppose, a fellow sleeps in his room and finds himself
in the same garments with which he slept; there is another
person who is made to sleep for medical purposes, for
example, with chloroform or some anaesthetic and then
his garments are taken away, new garments are given and
when he wakes up he finds himself in new garments. This
is the difference between what we call sleep and what we
call death. But the mind and the senses with which we
understand things cannot understand the continuity of life
because the garments of our body are changed, name is
changed, identity is changed, environment is changed. And
we are afraid of such a change because we have what is
called 'attachment'. We are attached to our own people
and environment and things. This attachment gives us a
terror of death. The more the attachment is, the more
painful the death is. And conversely, the fellow who has
'detachment' in life, not in teaching but in practice, has
no fear of death. All other things can be taught to others;
without practising but happiness without suffering cannot
be taught to others, it should be experienced by everyone.
Suppose, I stand here and teach to all of you 'don't fear
death, don't be sorry for anything, be always happy', in
the meanwhile suppose there is pain here, I suspect that
I may die. Immediately you will feel my face becoming
pale. That means the teaching that I make is of no use
at all to me. Unless a change takes place in ourselves this
knowledge is not valuable to teach, but it is valuable only
when practised, because happiness and unhappiness are
not teachings but subjective experiences.
Happiness is something which we experience and not
to explain to others. Unless we understand death in such
terms, we cannot have a scientific understanding of death.
And if we approach the issue with our mind and senses
we can never understand it because mind and senses have
no capacity to understand what death is since they have
no capacity to understand what sleep is. Every night they
go into sleep whereas the greater intelligences in charge
of the functions, like respiration and the heartbeat, don't
go to sleep. And we identify ourselves with the mind and
the senses. That is why we die when we go into sleep,
and only when we wake up we understand that we slept.
We can never understand that we are sleeping. The result
is, we have no experience of sleep at all. When we have
no experience of sleep, how can we have an experience
of death? Without an experience of death, if we go on
studying volumes and volumes on death, and the volumes

on life after death and the volumes on how we go up in
the astral body, how we travel in the astral body and then
how we recollect all the life and how we experience the
joys and sorrows, all these things if we read, they are only
cock and bull stories because we are reading them without
any experience. They can be fine stories and novels. We
should be able to pass through the stage of death. And
for this, a training is required. Once again the training
is what is called Yoga, Yoga not only as practice but also
as an outlook of life. First of all, understand that there
is a continuity of life passing through birth and death just
as a string passing through the pearls. Understand yourself
as the continuous string of consciousness and compare the
bodies with the pearls. The more you begin to establish
in yourself, the more birth and death become false. They
are only formalities like our sleep and awakening. Every
death is given as a renewal of life. Just as every night
we sleep only to begin the work afresh the next day. If
we fail to do something today, tomorrow we begin to try
once again and succeed. We understand where we failed
and then we again experience not to commit the same
mistake. And then tomorrow or the day-after, after a few
sleeps and awakenings we try once again and succeed in
what we failed yesterday. The same purpose death serves
to us, when we fail in the mission of one life, that is
understanding what life is and going into the continuous
awareness of the Omnipresence and realising a life of no
want and no problem, getting fully convinced that life is
a solution and not a problem. To that end death helps us.
Whenever we fail to understand it, we die amidst many
worries and blunders in many tensions, in angers and

complexes. Everytime we make a bad arrangement of things
and then die and then we are reborn again with a better
body.
The fellow who misuses his body and makes it sick,
he suffers and dies, he will be given once again a fresh
body to know how to behave with it, conduct the same
experiment more successfully. To make the same
experiment with mind and the senses with the objects of
the senses, with the relationships to others, with neighbours
and with friends and enemies, with relatives, wife and
husband, children, with wealth, money and ideals. We are
given another chance to make the experiment once again
to see that it is made a success, to understand why we failed
in the previous birth, to know how to succeed in this birth
during which process mastery will be gained by us over
the body, mind and senses, to understand the machine of
the constitution, to know the technical use and technical
know- how of this machine and lead a life of
accomplishment. There the training period is complete,
then there is what is 'real life'. After some thousands of
births and deaths we gain mastery over everything in us.
We begin to understand how we have to behave with the
body and the senses, with the mind, with food, drink, sleep,
etc. Then we are free from the polarities that is the pairs
of opposites, that is attraction and repulsion, likes and
dislikes, convenience and inconvenience. We are free from
all these things and then starts what is called 'real life'.
It also includes births and deaths but the purpose is different.
Previously we lived for ourselves and we failed miserably,
we lived to eat and enjoy the taste, we lived to enjoy sex,

we lived to earn money and build houses, we lived to enjoy
high position in society, to have control over other people,
we lived to gain much strength, name and fame, we lived
to write books and throw them on this world. So, we lived
to do something for our own satisfaction, for our own
money, for our benefit, for our own happiness. So, self-
centered we were!
Now we understand we need nothing, we live because
this body is given to us and we know that the body goes
once again, therefore we know that there is no death. Then
we mind our own business, that is, for what we come to
this earth. For everyone of us we have something to do
and we die without accomplishing it because we are on
this side of evolution, we are very busy with our emotions
and complexes, we are very busy with what we think most
valuable, self-made ideals. So, we are entangled in the
self made ideals and we have no time to accomplish what
for we are born. So, we die a helpless death not
accomplishing what is expected of us. But after crossing
this point, we understand that we come to this world to
do something. Every minute we will be able to understand
what we are expected to do. Our environment teaches us
where we are expected to live, whom we are expected to
serve and what we are expected to do. Instead of
complaining against environment, we will understand that
environment is given to us. Today, we may be in the name
of a husband or wife. That means they are expected to
be colleagues for some time and again go somewhere and
do the work. The problem is what work it is. What is
the work of those intelligences of nature that are working

in us? Those intelligences are helping us to respire and
making our heart beat. Same is the work. Wherever we
are, we are expected to do the work there. Suppose, I am
in your house for one day, I am expected to do the work
in your house. Suppose tomorrow I am in some other house,
I have to work in that house; everyday I have my meal
and what is important is the continuity of the work. So,
the Masters teach us that everyone has a continuity of work.
And the question is, what is the result of the work?
Suppose, I am born as a teacher. I was appointed as a
professor in the university and I worked for twenty five
years, what is the result? The money I get is one result,
but we must understand that it is not the purpose. I am
expected to teach and what is the result? No result. It
is good work and I get myself purified by doing it. Suppose,
I am asked to help the sick people, to heal them, what is
it that we get. The professional doctor gets his money.
But suppose he is also a spiritualist and he is also a God-
man, immediately he understands that it is not for the money
that he is doing it. He distributes the money for good
purpose. He gives some money to his wife and children
and the remaining for some charity purposes. He
understands his work different from all these things.
Whenever he is asked to heal a person or select a medicine
for a person or administer a dose to a person, he will
understand that it is a training for him, a discipline for him
to make his mind and senses pure, to purify himself from
the motives, from the complexes, from the polarities, from
likes and dislikes from all the impurities he has.
The good work I do may be useful for others but it

is foolish to believe that we are doing it for the benefit
of others because if we do not do it, there are people who
do it better. Therefore, it is not for the benefit of others
that we are doing good work, it is for our own benefit we
are doing the good work. That is to purify our own vehicles
from the motives and complexes, to purify the mind and
the senses and emotions, to distill our consciousness and
make it pure to purify it from emotion, to solidify it into
devotion and have it as pure inspiration. This is the purpose
of life and it will be a continuous purpose of our living
through births and deaths afterwards. So, there is a series
of births and deaths before we realise this and also another
series of births and deaths after we realise this. The new
series of births and deaths is called 'God given births and
deaths'. This is known as 'divine life or life eternal'. We
have perfect mastery over ourselves and choice is given
to us to be born in any place we may require. Because
we have no desires or requirements, we are entrusted with
certain amout of power and mastery. The independence
given to us is directly promotional to the good behaviour
we show towards nature and others. The purpose of death
is to give us a new opportunity again and again to succeed
and reach this state of divine consciousness. Unless there
is death, we live a continuous monotonous life without
any opportunity to rearrange things, because unless mind
is completely taken away from us, unless a new mind is
once again given, we are not at all ready to leave off our
likes and dislikes and attachments and affections. So, death
is necessitated by nature because nature knows that it is
not death. But we believe that there is death because that
belief has its own terror upon us. And the terror has its
own medicinal effect upon us. This is something about
death and the process of death is actually nothing. It is
a truth which takes place in nature. We should just notice
its existence and there is no use of trying to analyse what
death is, just as there is no use of trying to analyse what
sleep is.
A psychogogue wanted to know, for example, what
sleep is. Every night he waited to understand how he would
go into sleep. He could not understand because every night
he slept. The next morning he woke up and said, "Yesterday
I slept, today let me understand what sleep is." So, every
night he went into sleep until he went into death. So, it
is useless to try to analyse what death is. After all when
the time comes, the body is dropped off. There is a fellow
inside who decides when to take the body and when to
drop it off. But since we are living a little bit different
from that fellow and since we live in our head and since
that fellow lives in our heart and since that fellow decides
when to die, we weep and fear death. But when the moment
comes actually, the connection between body and mind is
cut off, life is withdrawn from energy centres and if we
know how to cooperate, there is no death because it is a
conscious and painless process. But if we try to resist,
it is a painful and unconscious process. Just as anaesthesia
is given during surgical operation, during the process of
death there is a surgical operation going on unconsciously
between the body and mind, the first three principles of
our existence that is physical, vital and mental. And there
are four more principles. The first three are cut off at every
death from the real 'I am' who includes the fourth principle
called 'will', the fifth principle called 'love', the sixth
principle called 'all love' and the seventh principle called
'divine presence'. So, we have seven planes of existence
in everyone of us. In the books of Alice A. Bailey, they
are called the physical vehicle, the etheric vehicle, the
mental vehicle, the buddhic, nirvanic, para-nirvanic and
maha para-nirvanic. These are only technical terms, you
can use the terms of any school of thought. The truth is,
we have seven planes of existence in us. And many of
us live and die only in the first three planes just as the
father gives to his son the same packet without opening
the seal. The higher principles from four to seven are a
sealed packet to many of us, we carry the packet on our
heads as long as we live. We live only as the principles
one, two and three. And when death cuts off the three
principles, the higher packet is handed over to somebody
else. Many of us are not able to use the valuable things
in the higher four principles.
This works as a seed and then there is the soil of the
lower three principles once again. We are attracted again
to the soil by the desires we have before we die. And
according to the law of magnetism we are attracted to such
parents that are exactly fixed to give the required body
and mind, for example, if we lived a horrible life in the
past life to produce great diseases and a horrible mind,
this seed will be attracted to such parents who give us the
heredity of incurable diseases and a horrible mind with
criminal tendencies, etc. We understand it either according
to heredity or according to karma, not knowing that the
two are one, because we are attracted to the type of parents

that have the fitness of heredity and the fitness of mind
that is, those who have heredity that is fit for us to receive.
And if we are to receive a healthy body, if we have lived
a pious and a healthy life in the past birth, automatically
we will be attracted to pure souls as parents and we receive
a good heredity of body and mind so that the continuity
of the work is carried on. The good work which we have
conducted in the previous birth is continued in this life.
For example, in the previous birth you were a great devotee,
you wanted to practise God-life but you were as the child
of atheists who did not believe in higher things, and life
long you had to fight out your way, it gives you a good
environment in this life. Now, you are attracted to the type
of parents you require. For example, you will be attracted
to holy and pious parents who have a simple and godly
mind, who have real belief and who have instinctive
mastery over their mind and senses so that your
environment is no problem to you like this, the problems
of one birth will be solved in the next according to the
initiative we have taken in one birth. But if we have created
some involvements in this birth, we will be attracted to
parents who will give us more involvements so that we
have to solve for ourselves and prepare a better part for
the next birth. For example, a fellow who is a problem
to his parents will be attracted to the same type of parents
in the next birth so that the parent is a cruel idiot who creates
problems to the child from the beginning. And the child
has to lead a life of compromise so that his angularities
are all rounded, and his emotions are all paved properly
and in the next birth he can have a better choice. Like
this, the continuity goes on until we cross the first three

planes of existence and we begin to live in the fourth, fifth,
sixth and seventh planes of our consciousness. When we
begin to exist in the higher planes, the lower bodies will
die and again they will be given to us but the continuity
is there because we never lived in the perishable half of
our life, we begin to live in the imperishable half. This
is the training we are expected to receive. To give us the
opportunity for this training, death is given to us, and we
are expected to practise an attitude of a 'passivity to death'.
You should neither fear death nor desire death. Some
people feel that it is better for them to die soon. Some
people feel a suicidal tendency, some people try to commit
suicide and put an end to their body, some people think
that it is holy to believe that they should die soon. All
these foolish ideas should go away because life is given
to us, it is never proposed by us and we have no right to
fear death because this body is not ours, it is not gained
by ourselves. It is given to us as an institution, as a school,
to gain experience and to progress in evolution. We are
permitted to live in it. We are not the owners of it. Even
our parents are not its owners. The owner is nature and
the indweller is the ego who is called 'the permanent atom'
in the spiritual science. And He has a beautiful story of
man which He has to narrate himself through births and
rebirths, and which He has to enact, as a drama at the same
time enjoying as the audience of the drama also. Others
form the drama to Him and Himself is the audience. This
drama is enacted. When the drama is completed, all the
emotional and intellectual inequalities and animalism are
eliminated from us. Then there is what is called 'divine
life' which gives us the births and deaths. We do not die

when we leave the body, we are not born when the body
is born. We live with such a continuous consciousness and
go on doing the same work from birth to birth. This is the
purpose of death. And as the evolution permits us to
understand the significance of death, we will have a more
scientific and less emotional understanding of death. This
is something about the function of death. The story of
the boy, who reached Yama, gives us all the clues of what
death is. The word Yama means regulation, that is
discipline, the discipline required to gain mastery over
senses and mind that is the first three lower principles and
then follows existing in the fourth and the above higher
principles. Then your life is called a 'life of immortality'.
Question : I thank you very much for your servitude. You
have given examples without speaking of the
instinct, because you have not spoken on that.
When you have spoken of the young boy, it is
a question of a legend, it is a tale. And then
you spoke of the sheep that wanted to eat grass.
This is an instinct of conservation. When you
speak of the sleep, we do not get sleep because
we know that we are awake. It is our fear of
death. They ask "Isn't the instinct of
conservation a necessary fear?"
Ans : Yes, instinct of conservation is always necessary and
to the animals fear is also necessary for self-preservation.
But since we have crossed the evolution of animal stage
and we are given the power to discriminate, we can have
the same preservation without the necessity of fear. That
is why discrimination is given to the human kingdom.
Understanding is given to us which is not there in the animal

kingdom. Therefore, the animal requires fear to protect
itself. And for the human being self-preservation needs only
instinct and no fear because the intellect has replaced fear;
we have no actual necessity of fear of death. It is only the
degree of evolution that gives us freedom from death, just
as a fruit when it is completely ripe is freed from the tree.
Similarly, when our evolution is complete when there is
no need to fear, self-preservation is left to us and the fear
of death will be removed from us by the same nature. Not
fearing death is not foolishness, it is not the foolish way
of running into risks but it is a full understanding and a
better understanding of things, just as the expert in
conducting feats of circus can manage things without risk
because of his training. Similarly, the trained fellow in
the God life can manage with the instinct of self-
preservation with the help of his passive attitude so that
his time may be better used for more valuable work. That
is what they mean.
The legend of the boy, it is not a question whether
it is historical or legend, when something carries a truth
for us to understand and when something has a deeper
significance it is always true whether it happens or not.
For example, when a novelist writes a novel we know that
the story is false and it has not happened. Even then we
are reading the novel with great interest. In the same way
a story, which has not happened and which is a legend,
is much more valuable and true than a novel because it
carries eternal truth with it. For that truth, we care for
stories and not for the historicity of any incident.
Question : He speaks of the two cases. One person has

killed himself. Another tried several times to
commit suicide but did not succeed. What
happens in each case?
Ans : The crime of committing suicide is the same in both
the fellows and the proposal of the crime has its own stamp
on both the fellows. The one who has succeeded will
experience the agony of his criminal act after his death
and before the next birth. Whereas the second example,
he experiences the same agony before his death.
Question : What could be done about these persons? Can
we do anything for them?
Ans : That is a question that cannot be solved because once
again his individual karma is there to permit us to help
him or not. The best attempt to help and save him is the
only thing we can do. The rest exists with his previous
karma. Whether he permits us to help him or not does
not depend upon us but depends upon him. So, it is for
us to make a sincere attempt. There ends our duty.
Question : You say that we should make a difference
between the fear of death on one side and the
fear of the way we are going to die. She says
that people fear in the way much more than
they fear death itself. Please explain.
Ans : Ofcourse, it is also equally emotional because we
understand the fact that the way in which we die depends
upon the way in which we have lived. It can also be
received without any emotion, because the way in which
we die directly depends upon the way in which we lived
our lives. So, a proper understanding of this will give us

a more scientific and a less emotional attitude towards the
way of death also, because there are people who gained
mastery enough to look at their own pain in an objective
way. That's it. In the next birth they will be able to live
a better life to have a normal and natural and instinctive
death. It is those people who die within a split second doing
their work and being active. That requires a life of some
principles, that depends upon our behaviour, habits of our
food, drink, sleep, work and sex, and our attitude towards
others. So, one life training is necessary for the nature
of death of that life.
Question : How we have to train to die like Mahatma
Gandhi?
Ans : Not only Gandhi, there are many such examples.
Yes, after certain stage of evolution, Masters begin to live
in the higher principles whereas there is no karma to the
lower three principles. And in such cases, it is the karma
of the nation or the race or the country that reflects upon
them and it results in an incident. Just as the karma of the
whole human kingdom of this earth planet resulted in the
crucifixion of the Lord Christ. So it is not their karma,
but it is the karma of humanity. Very good question.
Thank You.
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Machilipatnam W.T.T. BROTHERHOOD

11-1-2016 Ch. S. N. Raju

2. The Soul and its Path 38

3. The Evolution of Consciousness of Man 62

4. The Power of Habit 90

5. The Work as Discipline and Prayer 118

6. The work of the Masters of Wisdom 145

7. To Die is Not to Die 164

efore I start my lecture I have the duty to thank you

the more our philosophy becomes different from others,

because we have a mental disease called 'the human way

until once again I find the whole thing is an illusion. Once

you a little story about 'knowing thyself'. It is also a story

Then after a few days, the son asked, "Father there

philosophies of world, as long as you are thinking who

In all the three, there exists something as the fourth which

The son began to meditate but not yet convinced. It

or unhappy people. He created people and left them to the

Then the father said, "People are creating their own

Then the son asked, "Father I am not convinced. I want

intelligence close themselves in their mind, and they die

is coming. It is in this, all this creation is continuing. It

"Can't you find it?"

you do not know anything till now. Not possible. So,

consciousness where the question becomes the answer. So,

to my fate? I can't leave it there in the street and go away,

'mine' because it comes and goes. Even if it goes we are

Moses went up the mountain and found a self-luminous

everyone is living. So, always this is the catch word. It

Millions and millions of fellows with bodies come from

is a great opportunity. We are expected to utilise the

So, the first plane is the plane of mineral consciousness,

are virtues. They are sympathy, help, cooperation etc. We

Master D.K. said, "there are no Ashrams on the

Ans. : In the beginning, generally they begin to contact

and practical nature that contain the ultimate solutions of

themselves. We will know where their university exists,

rothers and sisters who have gathered here, I thank

corrected them by saying, "Don't meditate I have a soul,

can be rejected physically in you that can be detected and

and you have a body of understanding. Now your

the stage of the animal long ago, entered the human

trained by the same group of professors and they were

the required things with the help of the nervous system.

also others and gain a two-fold experience. There are people

believe that we die. That is why the fear of death exists,

Can I say I am this wrist watch? No, because this is mine.

we receive a shock. Something works like this. We then

properly, you cannot comprise with any truth about this

of all we would have done our duty on this earth. Let

how it exists. We say this is a hall. If I say this hall is

with a string, can you call it a flower? You cannot. You

bottle in his mind, he cannot make a bottle outside. Unless

The next layer is the body of matter. So, once again

according to Pathanjali. So, the yoga of Pathanjali makes

every moment and made to exist like a soup bubble played

possessive nature, but nature to offer. If I love too much

the bodies are floating in the one person. Instead of a person

than what the human beings manifest. But the science of

this 5% of consciousness becomes conscious to the human

we consider the necessary things, they don't include all the

conscious at all of our respiration and heart-beat. We are

not mean only the consciousness we know. We have four

the minerals of our earth also. Unless the mineral

the intelligence of the 20th century scientist is very poor.

called Devas working in the body to keep us living by

But when we go to the Scriptures, we will understand

space. But till now the psychologists have not come to

we know, because it knows many more measures and

an actor, who is ready to take up any costume according

the Dutch Marks. A fellow, an Indian like me, who comes

of the consciousness of dream and sleep makes us imagine