Mrs. Hick Riddingh asked Sri Bhagavan in writing: “When Bhagavan writes about the help given towards attaining Self-Realisation by the gracious glance of the Master or looking upon the Master, how exactly is this to be understood?”
M.: Who is the Master? Who is the seeker?
D.: The Self.
M.: If the Self be the Master and also the seeker, how can the questions arise at all?
D.: That is just my difficulty. I must seek the Self within myself. What is then the significance of the writing above referred to? It seems contradictory.
M.: It is not. The statement has not been rightly understood.
If the seeker knows the Master to be the Self he sees no duality in other respects either and is therefore happy, so that no questions arise for him.
But the seeker does not bring the truth of the statement to bear in practice. It is because of his ignorance. This ignorance is however unreal. The Master is required to wake up the seeker from the slumber of ignorance and he therefore uses these words in order to make Reality clear to others.
The only thing that matters is that you see the Self. This can be done wherever you remain. The Self must be sought within. The search must be steadfast. If that is gained there is no need to stay near the Master as a physical being.
The ‘statement’ is meant for those who cannot find the Self remaining where they are.
Mr. Ward Jackson: The lady’s difficulty is real and I sympathise with her. She asks, “If we could see the Self within ourselves, why should we have come all the way to see Him? We had been thinking of Him so long and it is only right that we came here. Is it then unnecessary to do so?
M.: You have done well in having come. “Iswaro gururātmeti” (The Self is the God and Guru). A person seeks happiness and learns that God alone can make one happy. He prays to God and worships Him. God hears his prayers, and responds by appearing in human shape as a Master in order to speak the language of the devotee and make him understand the Reality. The Master is thus God manifest as human being. He gives out His experience so that the seeker might also gain it. His experience is to abide as the Self. The Self is within. God, Master and the Self are therefore seeming stages in the Realisation of the Truth. You have doubts on reading books. You have come here to have them cleared. That is only right.
Mrs. H. R.: I understand the Self to be the Master and must be sought within. So I can do it where I live.
M.: The understanding has been theoretical. When it is put into practice difficulties and doubts arise. If you can feel the presence of the Master where you are your doubts are readily overcome, for the Master’s part consists in removing the doubts of the seeker.
The purpose of your visit is fulfilled if the doubts do not arise hereafter, and you apply yourself steadily in the search for the Self.
D.: I understand it all along.
M.: Good. The objection is not to your conclusion but it is to your doubts.
Mr. W. J.: When we read about it we read it intellectually. But it is all too remote. When we see you in body we are brought nearer to Reality and it gives us courage to bring our knowledge into our everyday life.
If one realised the Self and acted up to it in the West, one would be locked up in a lunatic asylum. (Laughter.)
M.: You will be locking yourself in. Because the world is mad, it considers you mad. Where is the lunatic asylum if it is not within. You will not be in it, but it will be in you. (Laughter.)
Uncertainties, doubts and fears are natural to everyone until the Self is realised. They are inseparable from the ego, rather they are the ego.
D.: How are they to disappear?
M.: They are the ego. If the ego goes they go with it. The ego is itself unreal. What is the ego? Enquire. The body is insentient and cannot say ‘I’. The Self is pure consciousness and non-dual. It cannot say ‘I’. No one says ‘I’ in sleep. What is the ego then? It is something intermediate between the inert body and the Self. It has no locus standi: If sought for it vanishes like a ghost. You see, a man imagines that there is something by his side in darkness; it may be some dark object. If he looks closely the ghost is not to be seen, but some dark object which he could identify as a tree or a post, etc. If he does not look closely the ghost strikes terror in the person. All that is required is only to look closely and the ghost vanishes. The ghost was never there. So also with the ego. It is an intangible link between the body and Pure Consciousness. It is not real. So long as one does not look closely it continues to give trouble. But when one looks for it it is found not to exist.
Again, in a Hindu marriage function, the feasts continue five or six days. A stranger was mistaken for the best man by the bride’s party and they therefore treated him with special regard. Seeing him treated with special regard by the bride’s party, the bridegroom’s party considered him to be some man of importance related to the bride’s party and therefore they too showed him special respect. The stranger had altogether a happy time of it. He was also all along aware of the real situation. On one occasion the groom’s party wanted to refer to him on some point. They asked for him. He scented trouble and made himself scarce. So it is with the ego. If looked for, it disappears. If not, it continues to give trouble.
How it is to be looked for is learnt from those who have already done so: That is the reason the Master is approached.
D.: If the search is to be made within, is it necessary to be in the physical proximity of the Master?
M.: It is necessary to do so until all doubts are at an end.
D.: If the ego is unreal and troublesome why did we take so much pains to develop it?
M.: Its growth and the trouble consequent on such growth make you look for the cause of it all. Its development is for its own destruction.
D.: Is it not said that one must be like a child before one advances spiritually?
M.: Yes, because the ego is not developed in the child.
D.: I mean exactly the same. We could have remained like the child instead of having developed the ego.
M.: The state of the child is meant. No one can take lessons from the child for the Realisation of the Self. The Master’s state is like the state of the child. There is a difference between the two. The ego is potential in the child, whereas it is totally destroyed in the saint.
D.: Yes, I see, I understand it now.
M.: The Reality is alone and eternal. So its understanding is good enough. But the old ignorance should not return. A good watch must be kept lest the present understanding of the Truth suffers later on.
A disciple served a master a long time and realised the Self. He was in Bliss and wanted to express his gratitude to the master. He was in tears of joy and his voice choked when he spoke. He said, “What a wonder that I did not know my very Self all these years? I suffered long and you so graciously helped me to realise the Self. How shall I repay your Grace? It is not in my power to do it!” The master replied: “Well, well. Your repayment consists in not lapsing into ignorance over again but in continuing in the state of your real Self.”
[Compiler’s Remarks:
The Self is the Master and all else. The Realisation of the Self means Self-surrender or merging into the Master. What more can anyone do? That is the highest form of gratitude to the Master.]