The Way Of The Bird Quotations of Ranjit Maharaj Commentaries by Andrew Vernon 1 January: The Illusory Nature of the World 1.1 "The world is not true." The world is not external. Perception of the world happens spontaneously in the Self, against the unchanging background of reality, like the dream that occurs in sleep. You are that Self, not an individual, but you have forgotten about it. In fact, the individual person that appears to have forgotten is also happening spontaneously as one of the characters in the dream of life, while the Self rests peacefully in its own completeness, like Vishnu sleeping on the cosmic ocean. If a world appears, there is consciousness of it; if nothing appears, there is no consciousness of it. The world that appears could be a dream world or it could be this waking world. The appearance and the one who perceives it arise together and are not separate. Both the dream world and the waking world disappear when you are deeply asleep. If they were true, they would remain. 1.2 "The body is dead at this moment." The body is like an appliance that works when electricity is connected to it and which ceases to function when the power is disconnected. The body itself, like the appliance, is an inert thing-it doesn't have any life of its own. The life that animates the body is a power that transcends the sense of individual existence. What is the nature of that power that gives life to all that lives? That power is pure knowledge or universal consciousness. As long as that power is connected, what we call life is there. It is there even when the body and mind subside into the state called deep sleep (dreamless sleep), which is proven by the fact that when you wake up in the morning, you say "I slept well." Such knowledge would be impossible if power had not been continuous during the sleeping state. The power prompts two living cells: male and female, to unite and form the gross physical body in the first place, and continues to make it grow to maturity. It remains for the span of time allotted to the body, and in the end drops the body. Where does the power go? It doesn't go anywhere, because it is all-pervasive. The body disintegrates, returning to the gross elements from which it was formed. 1.3 "Be always courageous. Say that nothing is true." If you say "nothing is true," that is an act of courage because you have to make that statement without any support from the world. If you read the newspaper, ask your relatives, or look anywhere outside, you will not find any evidence to support it. Worst of all, there is no support from your own perceptions either-your own eyes see the world as a collection of separate objects and your mind generally takes it to be true. Yet Maharaj said that one who takes the world to be true remains an aspirant, while one who does not take it to be true becomes a realized person! This is why faith is so important. Only faith in the Master allows you to keep returning to the thought that his point of view is correct. You have to rely on faith until you realize the truth of what he says for yourself. As an aspirant, faith in the Master is really the most powerful weapon that you have. It is not different from Grace. It can break down all the barriers that illusion places in the way of your aspiration and can dissolve the veil of ignorance. Where there is faith, the power to accept and understand the Master's teaching is there as well. 1.4 "The world is only thought." Imagine what would happen if you suddenly found yourself without thought and without the possibility of thought. How would the world appear to you then? Would you see any world of separate objects? Could you recognize this room, this page, these words? Could you experience emotions? You would not recognize any separate objects, and you would not see anything apart from yourself. Your own awareness would constitute the whole of reality. The so-called objective world; that is, the world that is apparently full of separate objects, is really an illusion. It exists only as names and forms. The mind is not the cause of that world- projection; it is only the mechanism through which the divine power (pure knowledge or universal consciousness) is working. That consciousness is all-pervasive and so it is the underlying reality of the apparent objects, including the apparent person who perceives them. 1.5 "Have fear of nothing and no one, for everything is nothing." In the vision of a realized person, there is nothing apart from the Self. Compared to that reality, everything that appears is nothing but a passing show. Absence of fear comes from the knowledge that what you are will not perish. This is why Maharaj gave the example that if someone comes and holds a revolver to your head, you should be able to say "That's OK. It's only the name and form that dies. I don't die." This may seem extreme, but is a statement that indicates what the goal is. As long as you are an aspirant, of course, it would be natural for fear to arise in that situation, because the certainty that you are not the body is not there. Certainty means that you know the answer to the question "Who am I?" beyond any doubt. Fear of death is therefore a clear indication that you still have to find the answer to that question. 1.6 "All the ornaments are nothing but gold." In India, when gold ornaments are sold, the value is calculated according to the weight of the gold. For example, five bangles are 100 grammes of gold, and a necklace is 100 grammes of gold as well. The form can be one thing or another thing; the underlying substance is what matters. This analogy means that all the various forms in the world are nothing but Brahman , the all-pervading consciousness. There is really nothing that separates one ornament from another as long as you are looking just at the gold. In the same way, there is nothing to distinguish one form from another if it is understood that there is one reality underlying them all. 1.7 "The body is only a covering on me." In Vedanta, the body is actually only one of five coverings, or kosas . All these coverings, from the most subtle to the most gross (which is the body) are only an appearance on the screen of reality. If you take the body to be something that has some independent existence, you are making a mistake. (Saint Tukaram said "I committed a criminal mistake, taking the body as true.") The body is an illusion. It comes, stays for a while, and then goes. Problems arise only when you take yourself to be that illusion. If you see the illusion as illusion, there is no problem; it can remain there without doing any harm. 1.8 "When the breath goes, nothing remains." Knowledge of your existence as a living being depends upon the presence of the gross physical body. The food eaten by the body is processed and the most refined product of that process is the knowledge "I am." That knowledge is what allows you to experience everything in this world and to act in it. According to Vedanta , the number of breaths that the body will take is predetermined and, when that number is reached, the body falls away. At that point, there will indeed be nothing remaining, because knowledge depends on the body, and the whole appearance of the world depends on knowledge. If you have identified yourself with that concept of "I," then you will fear death, because death is the end of that "I." With Self-knowledge, however, you understand that your true being is beyond knowledge. You also know that it will not be affected by the disappearance of the "I" concept, anymore than it was affected by its appearance. 1.9 "Say what is true is true, what is not true is not true always." One way of looking at the fundamental problem of living is to see that you feel a lack of completeness, of wholeness. You then try to find the solution to the problem by seeking happiness in external things. This error is based on the unquestioned assumption that the world is true. Maharaj therefore urged his disciples to constantly question this assumption and to go against it by asserting its opposite. The purpose of this assertion is to establish a habit of correct thinking to replace the old, wrong thinking. There are of course limitations to this approach. The fundamental problem is a problem of Self-ignorance, and it can only be resolved by Self-knowledge. Right thinking, in the sense of repetition of the correct ideas, is not an end in itself, but only one of the means, another way to make the mind subtle and to prepare it for the understanding of `Who am I." 1.10 "Everything is nothing." What kind of logic makes "everything" equal to "nothing?" "Everything" here means every object that can be perceived, including thoughts and feelings as well as gross objects. All of it taken together is referred to in the Upanishads as "this" ( idam ), as opposed to reality, which is referred to as "that" ( tat ).