To be a person is to be asleep

Questioner: Do you experience the three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping just as we do, or otherwise?
Maharaj: All the three states are sleep to me. My waking state is beyond them. As I look at you, you all seem asleep, dreaming up words of your own. I am aware, for I imagine nothing. It is not samadhi which is but a kind of sleep. It is just a state unaffected by the mind, free from the past and future. In your case it is distorted by desire and fear, by memories and hopes; in mine it is as it is -- normal. To be a person is to be asleep.
Q: Between the body and pure awareness stands the ‘inner organ’, antahkarana, the ‘subtle body’, the ‘mental body’, whatever the name. Just as a whirling mirror converts sunlight into a manifold pattern of streaks and colours, so does the subtle body convert the simple light of the shining Self into a diversified world. Thus I have understood your teaching. What I cannot grasp is how did this subtle body arise in the first instance?
M: It is created with the emergence of the ‘I am’ idea. The two are one.
Q: How did the ‘I am’ appear?
M: In your world everything must have a beginning and an end. If it does not, you call it eternal. In my view there is no such thing as beginning or end -- these are all related to time. Timeless being is entirely in the now.
Q: The antahkarana, or the ‘subtle body’, is it real or unreal?
M: It is momentary. Real when present, unreal when over.
Q: What kind of reality? Is it momentary?
M: Call it empirical, or actual, or factual. It is the reality of immediate experience, here and now, which cannot be denied. You can question the description and the meaning, but not the event itself. Being and non-being alternate and their reality is momentary. The Immutable Reality lies beyond space and time. Realise the momentariness of being and non-being and be free from both.
Q: Things may be transient, yet they are very much with us, in endless repetition.
M: Desires are strong. It is desire that causes repetition. There is no recurrence where desire is not.
Q: What about fear?
M: Desire is of the past, fear is of the future. The memory of past suffering and the fear of its recurrence make one anxious about the future.
Q: There is also fear of the unknown.
M: Who has not suffered is not afraid.
Q: We are condemned to fear?
M: Until we can look at fear and accept it as the shadow of personal existence, as persons we are bound to be afraid. Abandon all personal equations and you shall be free from fear. It is not difficult. Desirelessness comes on its own when desire is recognised as false. You need not struggle with desire. Ultimately, it is an urge to happiness, which is natural as long as there is sorrow. Only see
that there is no happiness in what you desire.
Q: We settle for pleasure.
M: Each pleasure is wrapped in pain. You soon discover that you cannot have one without the other.
Q: There is the experiencer and there is his experience. What created the link between the two?
M: Nothing created it. It is. The two are one.
Q: I feel there is a catch somewhere, but I do not know where.
M: The catch is in your mind, which insists on seeing duality where there is none.
Q: As I listen to you, my mind is all in the now and I am astonished to find myself without questions.
M: You can know reality only when you are astonished.
Q: I can make out that the cause of anxiety and fear is memory. What are the means for putting an end to memory?
M: Don’t talk of means, there are no means. What you see as false, dissolves. It is the very nature of illusion to dissolve on investigation. Investigate -- that is all. You cannot destroy the false, for you are creating it all the time. Withdraw from it, ignore it, go beyond, and it will cease to be.
Q: Christ also speaks of ignoring evil and being child-like.
M: Reality is common to all. Only the false is personal.