Mary: What is knowledge?
Ram: Knowledge is what removes ignorance. You
don’t know where your keys are. I show
you that they are in your purse. The
knowledge removes the ignorance.
Mary: Knowledge appears, just as ignorance appears,
so it is not the actionless Self. It is
an appearance in the mind, so what does it have to do with the Self?
Ram: A part of the Self has apparently forgotten
what it is so the Self uses knowledge to remove its ignorance of itself and
give the mind peace.
Mary: Every realization happens in the mind, so is
there something like an "objective truth" at all?
Ram: There is no objective truth. All truth depends on the one who knows
it. Or put it this way: the only
‘objective truth’ is the Self. By this
is meant that the ultimate knower is Awareness, the Self. And this knower will always be the same. All truths in Maya are conditional and
relative.
Mary: Please don’t throw me out of your heart for
all this heresy!
Ram: How can I do this? You are my heart.
Mary: If I am the Self, limitless, all pervasive awareness, independent of anything, why am I only aware of Mary’s
body and mind? (I know, this is confusion
between the two I´s, but I just don’t get that
clear.)
Ram: You are aware of
every body and every mind. How? As the Self. It is the same awareness in every living
being. Mary has unlimited awareness but
limited knowledge. God has unlimited
awareness and limitless knowledge. Only
the object, knowledge, is different.
God is the Self with reference to the totality of the creation and Mary
is the Self with reference to a specific individual. God’s knowledge is not superior to an
individual’s knowledge. It is just the
sum total of all individual knowledges including all
the individual animals and plants. If
you add together the knowledge of a bird and the knowledge of a tree and the
knowledge of Einstein, is the total of this knowledge superior to any one of
these individual knowledges? Whether the knowledge is vast and deep or
shallow and limited it is all the same to the Self.
Anyway, you don’t get
more happiness by getting more knowledge.
So there is no point for an individual to know what God knows. God does not have a potential for greater
happiness than any individual. All the
fame, knowledge and power that belongs to God does not
make God any more satisfied than the knowledge ‘I am limitless non-dual
actionless awareness” makes an individual.
Self knowledge for God is the same as Self knowledge for the
individual. Knowledge does not complete
you because you are already complete.
Knowledge just makes you appreciate what you are.
Mary: Whenever I tell myself, that I am everything
the question arises: Then, why am I not aware of everything? When I am miserable, I sometimes tell myself,
that all glory is my glory, all the happiness in this
world is my happiness, so why fret? But
then the mind asks: If that is so, why am I not aware of all this
happiness? Why am I just aware of this
particular misery here?
Ram: If you look through your reading glasses will
you see ultraviolet and infrared? If you
look through Mary you will only see what it in Mary. You will not see what is in anything
else. But if you understand that what
you are aware of is you, whether it is the total or
some small fraction of the total, you will be happy. Misery is just as good as happiness to the
Self. Why? Because both are the Self. But the Self is free of both. The Self does not draw its happiness from
objects. It is self satisfied, meaning
it is satisfied with itself.
Here is another
argument. You say ‘why am I not aware of
all this happiness?’ But I say, how can you say you are not aware of all this happiness when you
say that all this happiness exists. If
you are not aware of it, then you will be quite satisfied with your
misery. Why? Because you will not know that there is
anything else.
Mary: And in the last satsang you
say: "It is true that if you know that this is a benign non-dual
reality fear does not happen. However,
if one’s knowledge of this fact is a bit shaky, then it is possible, when the
desire for love arises in a mind that is not pure (the desire for love does not
arise in a pure mind because it experiences love every minMary)
for one to allow the mind to fall in love."
Who is that
"one" that allows the mind to fall in love? Who else is there except the mind?
Ram: The Self under
the spell of apparent ignorance allows the mind to have its way. When this apparent ignorance is removed by
apparent knowledge, the Self may not allow the mind to have its way because it
knows there is nothing to gain.
Alternatively it may allow the mind to have its way because it knows
that whatever karma the mind creates cannot affect it. An impure mind is one that does not know that
the Self is the source of all true love.
It believes that love is only to be had by contact with objects.
Mary: Dear Ramji, maybe this is all mindfuck. But you
say, understanding is the only way, and understanding happens in the mind, so
we have to "unfuck" it, right?
Ram: Sure.
It’s a pleasure to unfuck your mind. Please make sure you don’t fall in love with
your ignorance. If you do I am out of a
job.
Mary: Underneath or above or behind all these
questions there is a certainty, a conviction that it is all true, that I
am this One No-thing, that nothing can ever happen either to ME or me, but my
mind is just too confused, tamasic, impure or whatever to see it clearly and understand
it. Lily says: "Loving is the one
most precious thing one gets from loving." How lucky I am to love you!
Ram: Ah, this is music to my ears. How lucky you are to love. Stick with the certainty. That’s you, the
Self. Work on the mind’s questions
patiently but don’t take it too seriously.
You can let it be a bit ignorant.
It doesn’t matter what it knows.
Ignorant or not, you are still you.
Love,
Ramji
Dear Ramji!
I just got your
answer, thank you! Don´t
worry, I'm not falling in love with my ignorance; it’s more like a
breakout of rash, it itches and I have to scratch but I don´t
love it. What feels good is the
conviction, not the doubt. Now I see
that the kernel of my confusion was that I forgot that the mind is inert. I had endowed the mind with
consciousness. Now I see at least this
point clearer. And thank you for the
last bit: It doesn't matter what the mind knows. Ignorant or not, I am still I.
Good night and loads
of love,
Maryji
Dear Mary,
Very
good. Your
mind has zeroed in on the essence. One needs to always distinguish the
mind from the Self. The mind is the Self but the Self is free of the
mind. Sentient and insentient are good words to indicate the
difference. You cannot ascribe sentiency to the mind, only to the
Self. And the last statement was a statement of pure knowledge:
“Whether the mind is ignorant or not 'I am still
There are not two
selves, one limited the other limitless. There is only the 'I'
with apparent knowledge or apparent ignorance.
Ram