Bodiless

October 30, 2023

Om Om Om

(Silence)

You are the Self, of the nature of Absolute Being. Bodiless, you do not come or go. Bodiless, you are neither active nor inactive. Bodiless, you are completely formless. Bodiless, you do not appear or disappear. For you, therefore, there is neither birth nor death. What has a beginning and end, creation and destruction, is not yourself.

Bodiless, you are also without individuality. Being without individuality, you are of an undifferentiated nature. Bodiless, you cannot be defined in terms of being here or there, now or then. Bodiless, you are location-less and timeless. Bodiless, you are naturally infinite and eternal. Bodiless, you are not in the world. The world merely appears within you; you are the infinite and the eternal.

If you know yourself to be bodiless, you are, indeed, wise. If you mistake yourself to be a body, you appear to be bound or ignorant. You do not actually ever become a body, and none of the attributes of the body pertain to you.

Bodiless and egoless, your nature is of Absolute Being, which is invariable, which is changeless, which has its own certainty regarding itself, which is the real nature of Knowledge, which is Brahman, the Self.

By sharp discrimination, discern your bodiless nature. Bodiless you always are. Even if you imagine otherwise, the one who so imagines is bodiless. The body does not imagine that you are the body. Bodiless, you always are.

Abide in the knowledge of being bodiless Being. Yours, then, is immortal bliss.

Questioner: Namaste Swami. Is abiding the mind in the Self a habit to be developed, or can it happen instantly?

Nome: Abidance as the Self is timeless. To some, it appears to slowly develop. For others, it appears as if suddenly. Really it is neither. Abidance in the Self entails dissolution of the mind, and it is only for the mind that the question of developing over time, etc. arises.

Q: So, should I keep doing what I’m doing?

N: The question to ask yourself is “Who am I?”

Another Questioner: Thank you for the discourse. I was thinking about the desire for liberation. I might get misidentified and think it’s objective. Here in satsang, there is this knowledge, a certain conviction, and, when you talk about this Truth, you transfer that conviction, and it feels like Self-inquiry is actually immediate. It’s not far off. I think of it as a process, but when you speak of it, it is timeless. It’s not like a far-off adventure.

Nome: Being timeless, it is ever-existent. It is not determined by external circumstances. The certainty of knowledge is inherent in inquiry and is also one of the benefits of satsang.

Q: Thank you. It’s very helpful. I’ve been dealing with my head feeling like it’s full of mucus, like a big ball. I try to discriminate. Your discourse on not being the body is helpful. But I am blinded by it. I feel like I must have more conviction. My conviction is weak.

N: For more conviction, more inquiry. Or rather, more depth of inquiry.

Q: I attempt to inquire. With that conviction, it’s more present. It’s more immediate. Without it, it’s a struggle.

N: Who struggles with what? The Self does not struggle; nor is there one who is distinct from the Self who struggles.

Q: So, I imagine myself to be something that is not. Inner experience is everything. The desire for liberation is everything, too. Without that, I would be hopeless.

N: So, you have what you need. Just use it.

Q: Thank you. It’s very helpful to unravel the craziness of the mind.

Another Questioner: I continue to meditate on Saddarshanam. How can it be so fresh and real? It is starting to dawn on me. The Maharishi said the Self has an endless fascination for itself. Fascination and bliss are one and the same thing. Part of the fascination is the deep, endless gratitude that the Maharshi made this knowledge available to us. It’s just endless grace over and over.

N: His grace is endless. With the dissolution of the ego, one knows it to be so.

Another Questioner: It is fascinating to hear that one never becomes the body. One is never the body. When looking at a dead body, which was alive, animate, a few minutes before, full of life, and suddenly becomes inanimate, it is a very stark feeling. The life force animates it. Then it is said to be transmigrating. I struggle with the concept of individual liberation, too. For one being, ignorance is destroyed, and then liberation happens, and for another being it is different. It is difficult to grasp that one has never been or becomes the body. How should one bring in that non-dual perspective when death happens to a close person?

N: Life and death are states of the body, not states of the Self. Before birth, the Self exists. After death, the Self exists. During the short period of time between the two, the Self still exists. A thing will never change its nature; so, the existent never becomes non-existent. Similarly, the Self never becomes a body. The Self exists. It does not come from anywhere, and it does not go anywhere. Identify yourself as the Self and not the body which is relatively inert. The Self is the same in all bodies, pervading them, yet transcendent of them. Creation and destruction, birth and death, do not pertain to the Self. They pertain only to the body. Are you the body? Within the mind, you dream of a life and death of a dream character; is such real?

Q: Then, what transmigrates? It is said the soul, the individual jiva, has to pass through various experiences and bodies until liberation is obtained. That seems to be different individually. For example, a person that just passed away is defined as a jiva that needs to find liberation through various…

N: What is the real nature of the jiva? It is not the body. It appears as if the embodied one. But is your existence really embodied? The Self appearing as a Jiva appears to go from birth to birth. Are you the jiva? What you regard as real is determined by what you take yourself to be. So, if you misidentify with the body, you mistake the world to be real. If you misidentify with the jiva or the mind, then there seem to be realms of experience, life, death, life upon life, etc. The truth is you are not the body, you are not in a body, and you do not possess a body. You are the eternal one alone. As it is for you, so it is for all.

Q: So, there isn’t really a need to suffer.

(Then followed a recitation in Sanskrit and English from the Ashtavakra Gita and in Tamil from the Song of Ribhu.)

(Silence)

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti