Self

Annamalai Swami: Don't forger your Self wherever you go. If you
can manage this, you will not need anything else.
A student once came to Bhagavan and told him that he wanted
to go for further education.
Bhagavan told him, 'This education is good for you. Study more.
But at the same time study the person who is studying. Study yourself.'
One of the old Siddhas [Tamil poet-saints who lived about 1,000
years ago] composed a song:
'I yearned for and searched for the truth. I ran everywhere looking
for it. I wasted my life, my time and my energy looking everywhere
for this truth. So much time was wasted in this pursuit, I have grown
old and am about to die. But finally I have understood that the true
light is within myself.'
You are going to different places on a pilgrimage, but what you
are really looking for is you yourself. You cannot achieve success in
this by going on external searches because you yourself are the one
that is being looked for. Your real nature is peace. Forgetting this, you
have lost your peace and you are searching in the outside world where
there is no peace to be found.
This is the teaching of Bhagavan, my Guru. I am passing it on to
you.
You must understand who you are and what you are, and then
you must remain as that. If you can manage this, this itself will suffice.
Right now you are under the impression that you are your body and
your mind, but the truth is, you are the Self. Let go of the 'I' that you
imagine yourself to be and catch hold of the real 'I', the Self.
What do you hope to gain from your pilgrimage, from going
here and there in an external journey? You are holding onto the idea
that you are your body and your mind. Having assumed this, you are
now looking for an external God so that you can worship him. Though
such worship may be beneficial, it will not take you beyond the realm
of the mind. While you hold onto the idea that you are a person
inside a body, whatever you see will be a manifestation of your own
mind. You cannot transcend the mind by worshipping your own
external projections. All these external appearances that you see in
front of you are maya. They have no fundamental abiding reality To
find the Self, to find what is true and real, you have to look inside
yourself. You have to find the source, the place where all these mental
projections arise.
You are looking for satisfaction in the outside world because
you think that all these objects you see in front of you are real. They
are not. The reality is the substratum in which they all appear. This is
what you should be seeking, instead of looking for external gods in
different pilgrimage places.
An elephant is made out of wood. If we see it as wood, it is
wood. But if we get caught up in the name and form, we will see only
an elephant and forget that its underlying nature is wood.
All is your own self. This form is different; that form is different.
This is more powerful; this is worse. These are all judgements you
make when you see separate objects instead of having the true vision
that all is an undifferentiated oneness. There maybe different varieties
of light bulbs, but the current that activates and sustains them is the
same. You must learn to become one with this activating current, the
unmanifest self, and not get caught up in all the names and forms
that appear in it.
Here is anorher verse from one of the Siddhas:
'Because of your ego you are going to the forest to look for spiritual
light. You are looking for this darshan of light in Badrinath and other
Himalayan pilgrimage places. These things are the illusion of the mind.
They depend on the states of the mind and the functioning of the
mind. That which you are searching for is within yourself.'
Bhagavan wrote in Ulladu Narpadu, verse eleven: 'Knowing all
else without knowing oneself, the knower of objects known, is nothing
but ignorance. How instead can it be knowledge?'
All the information the mind accumulates and all the experiences
it collects are ignorance, false knowledge. Real knowledge cannot be
found in the mind or in any external location. The mind sees through
coloured glasses, and what it sees is tinted and tainted by that colour.
If your mind is in a spoiled and disturbed condition, the enrire world
will appear to be in a spoiled and disturbed condition. If your mind
is crystal clear, everything will appear to you to be clear and peaceful.
Your most important objective must be realising the self. If you
have not done this, you will spend your time in ignorance and illusion.
You, your mind, this world - they are all maya. Don't become a slave
to this maya. Instead, realise the self and let maya become your
servant.


				*Self*