Larry: So are you saying to me that there is no world?

SWAMIJI: There is no world, finally—perfectly correct. Now further don’t talk!

Larry: There’s nobody to talk to.

SWAMIJI: It requires a plumbing into yourself. You go deep into your own self, because you are the answer to your questions. You, yourself are the answer. You will find that every answer comes from inside, which is a universal, bottomless sea, which is what you are. Deep practice of meditation is necessary. Place yourself in the context of that which is between you and that which you see—between that which you are and that which you think in your mind.

Deep meditation and a going into one’s own self—you see, listen. Whenever you think, you always think in a dualistic fashion—you are the thinker and there is a thought that you think; you are the thinker and there is an object that you are thinking of. Neither should you think of yourself, nor should you think of that which appears to be an object of your mind. Let that thing which is between you and the object transfer you to that middle position. Can you transfer your consciousness? Put it here, your consciousness should sit here. Can it sit here? Now it is inside your body. It is operating through the body and you are seeing through the aperture of your eyes and then perceiving a person like me here. You unlock your consciousness which is now tied up within the body, and concentrate in such a way that you are here in the middle, just now.

Larry: Outside my body?

SWAMIJI: Yes; and you are seeing both—not Mr. So-and-so Krauss seeing, it is some non-Krauss which is between both, seeing Krauss on the other side, Krishnananda this side. Then you will see that you are a different man altogether. You become a superman in one second. Now you are a man because you are looking through the medium of your eyes, through this body, at another thing, which is outside; that is man-thinking. Superman-thinking is a thought that is between both the subject and the object, which is transcendent to both subject and object, and also immanent in another way—both transcendent and immanent. A superman thinks in terms of the transcendent that is between the subject and the object, whereas the human mind thinks only of one side and cuts itself off from that which it perceives. So we should try to think like supermen and not simply like men.

Men cannot answer human questions. No man can answer man’s questions. Every man is like any other man; there is no difference. But there is a superhuman element in man that transcends human thought and which is above both the perceiver and the perceiving consciousness. It is a big circus feat, a feat that you have to perform in your consciousness. It is not the usual way of thinking, but it is a very, very necessary way of thinking, if you want to be impartial in your thoughts and happy in your mind. Otherwise, you will be always one-sided. Your balance will be swinging this side or that side and it will never be equalised.

Larry: But the moment I place myself in that position . . .

SWAMIJI: You will see neither yourself nor the world at that time. You will see something connecting both. Almost it is like God-vision. It is almost here on the lap of God, if you think like that. God is a balance between the subject and the object. That is God, and God is nothing but consciousness. So if you can think, if you can operate your consciousness as that which subsists between the seer and the seen, you are actually on the lap of God. Almost it is God-thinking, and you cease to be a person afterwards. It will transform you to such an extent (this exercise which I am mentioning to you) that if you can do it for even a few minutes consistently, with deep thought and intensity, in a few minutes you will find some tremendous vibration taking place in your personality and you will not be the same man that you were a little before. It will rejuvenate your personality physically, mentally, even socially. You will be a different individual. People will see ‘something’ in you. The moment they look at your face they will know there is ‘something’, some value is coming—because it is not a man that is coming. It is another thing that is coming through this personality of man.

I am telling all this because here a little practice is necessary. You need not read too much and discuss too much. The matter is simple. The proof of the pudding is in its eating. You have to eat it; that is all—otherwise you go on discussing about the pudding and there is no purpose. So, I request you to do some practice every day and try to think only along these lines. Let there be no other way of thinking. This is your habit; in your personal life, in you social life, in you legal life, whatever life, you think only along these lines. This is your way of thinking; give up the old way of thinking which is a dichotomy between subject and object, where you are obliged to take sides. You either take the subjective side or the objective side; you cannot strike a balance. It is very difficult because the habit of the mind is to get locked up in the body of one’s own self and then have some like or dislike, love or aversion to another body. It is a kind of malady. The consciousness locked up in a body is in a state of malady. It is sick actually; it is suffering, and so all our thoughts are a kind of sick thought. It is not natural and normal thought. So, neither are we happy nor can we make another person happy. A kind of total transformation of values is necessary by rethinking in a new model altogether, so that you don’t think through the body but through a way which is away from the body.

In the Yoga of Patanjali, there is a beautiful, very much neglected sutra (sutra means aphorism). People neither read it nor understand it. “The great consciousness is that which is outside the body.” That is all the translation of the sutra. When he speaks of ‘outside’, he actually means ‘free from the shackles of bodily encasement’, which is another way of mentioning just what I told you now. You are not sitting there; when I say ‘you’ I mean the consciousness. This Mr. consciousness-Krauss, whatever it is, is sitting inside this so-called body. Let it come out of this body and sit here on this carpet and look at it, and you become your own object and your attachment to the body ceases. Now you are thinking that you are a physical subject, so the consciousness clings to the body to such an extent that you think nothing but your own body. Let that thing which you now consider as your physical subject be an object, and you will be as much detached from it as you are detached from any other person sitting here—because you are not this; you are another thing that is looking at you. And you will look at yourself in the same way as you look at other people.

You are not concerned with the fate of these people here; you won’t bother; and you will also not be concerned with this body at that time, because you are another than what you appeared to be earlier. You are as much an object as anybody else. But why should you consider yourself a subject? That is the whole point; that is the mistake. That exercise is possible only if you are able to concentrate as this Patanjali sutra says: Transfer yourself to a position which is not the body—wider than the body—between the subject and the object, transcending both, and yet immanent in both. You become a God-man. You will not be a man at all. You will be something other than the ordinary human.

Larry: Is there no significance to one’s personality?

SWAMIJI: The personality will be taken care of by that which includes both this personality and the other—like the body taking care of two hands. You need not ask the right hand, “What is your connection with the left hand, sir?” You need not have to put questions like that, because the right hand belongs to that to which the left hand also belongs; so the body will take care of both. The subject belongs to that to which the object also belongs, and that particular thing is what I am emphasising, which is the real you. So, everything will be taken care of automatically. No problem will arise.

Larry: It still begs one question for me. What was the point in the first place of having individual personalities?

SWAMIJI: You are asking the question, why it took place. It will be known to you when you transcend this body; when you are above this body you will know the answer to this question. Again I told you, you are flashing a torchlight on ignorance. You cannot know ignorance through knowledge; they are contradictories. The question is a part of ignorance and the answer that you expect is a part of knowledge. As they are contradictories, one cannot know the other. You cannot see dream in waking; you cannot know waking in dream. Both cannot be simultaneously existing. So, theoretical questions are of no utility. You will find that in practice you will get the answer. The whole problem will vanish like mist before the sun, if you can concentrate properly. There is no need of questioning. It will solve itself automatically.

Sarah: All the wisdom that a person gets while in the body, through suffering, through personal growth, through maturity—what is the worth of that? Does it have any worth?

SWAMIJI: Yes, through that only you are thinking now; otherwise, how will you think? The knowledge has arisen gradually by the process of evolution from the lower stages to the higher stages, and now the stage that you have reached is the human stage. What I am referring to is something beyond the human stage.

Sarah: So you can only get to the human stage when you are always within the body.

SWAMIJI: Already you have reached the human stage, and you are now thinking through the human mind, but you have to think through the divine mind. That is what I am referring to. There is a stage higher than the human way of thinking, which is the divine way of thinking. But we have not reached that state yet. We think only as human beings, but there is a way of thinking which is not human—superhuman—that is what I was mentioning just now. Of course, it has gradually evolved from the lower stage and it has come through the body. You are perfectly right. From mineral to plant, plant to animal, animal to man, man to God—that is how it will rise gradually.

Sarah: And you only get to the divine way of thinking through meditation and deep thought, right?

SWAMIJI: Mediation. Yes, certainly. Yes, yes, perfectly right.