The Insight of 'I am I'

When Prahlada's father, Hiranyakasipu drew him near and fondly asked the boy to repeat what he had learnt from his teacher, Prahlada replied, "I learned the secret essence of all learning." The father was glad and asked him, "Tell me the essential thing that you have mastered." Prahlada said, "Father! He who illumines everything, He who finally absorbs everything with Himself, is the One, Lord Narayana. Having Him always in mind and experiencing the bliss thereof awards fulfillment to all." He further said, "Father! You conquered the entire world, but you failed to conquer your senses. How then can you receive grace from Narayana? These material skills and worldly achievements are hollow possessions. The knowledge and experience of the One Divine (Brahma-vidya), that alone is worthy to be pursued," said the child prodigy. 

Baba (thought for the day)

Prahlada’s father, Hiranyakasipu, was a scholar and a big and powerful demon, he was that powerful that God in the form of a lion had to come down and destroy him. His wife when pregnant lived with a sage in an ashram and the son was therefore a devotee and when he went to school the father expected a different knowledge and not what Prahlada is answering here. If we would listen how the story is going on Baba would tell us that the father got very enraged listening to that and he wanted to get rid of the son in many different attempts to kill him afterwards. He began to fight God in the boy and finally God came down and killed him.

Prahlada replied, "I learned the secret essence of all learning." The father was glad and asked him, "Tell me the essential thing that you have mastered." Prahlada said, "Father! He who illumines everything, He who finally absorbs everything with Himself, is the One, Lord Narayana. Having Him always in mind and experiencing the bliss thereof awards fulfillment to all."

This is the same message we find in Baba’s words.
Prahlada tells the father that it is about the essence and that he learned about the secret essence and the father was still glad and asked him to specify. And Prahlada answered, the one who illumines everything, he who absorbs everything within himself, the one only, being aware of that one always in our mind and experiencing the bliss thereof awards the fulfillment to all.

He further said, "Father! You conquered the entire world, but you failed to conquer your senses. How then can you receive grace from Narayana? These material skills and worldly achievements are hollow possessions. The knowledge and experience of the One Divine (Brahma-vidya), that alone is worthy to be pursued," said the child prodigy.

Do you think the father was glad to hear from his son that he had conquered the world, the entire world, but not his own senses? The senses are the mind and if we don’t go beyond the mind, how can we receive grace from divinity?

The material skill and worldly achievements are hollow possession, like think and get rich, the book we got, it is empty, only hollow possessions and what Baba said when he left the body, ‘no more husband, nothing left but an empty Western shoe’. 

He said he is the man who comes in our dreams to awake us and how does it happen in our dream? In that example the boy talks about the fulfillment for all and that is certainly not emptiness, in the empty Western shoe is not fulfillment but emptiness for all. The divine is the opposite; it is about fullness and fulfillment and it is telling us indirectly that being focused on the senses and material stuff will lead only into emptiness. The knowledge and the experience of the one divine is alone worthy to be pursued.

If we listen to Baba we have to get the right meaning in it and the right answer and not something else and we go for five weeks to Prasanthi and claim to be Baba devotees and at the same time we copy and send books around with the message, ‘think and get rich’. Do you think the father was still glad to hear that he had not conquered the senses? No he was not, he wanted afterwards to kill his own son.

 Human life is granted only to know the truth, ‘I am I’.

Not adept to the right technique, being not self-disciplined, man often fumbles, delaying his journey and thus his goal. We get tips from Bhagavan leading to Truth … And what does it mean? Do we understand it right and put it into practice? Books about think and get rich is not the right purpose, not the right technique, not about being self-disciplined and in that sense fumbling around, delaying our journey and thus the goal and what is worse, misleading others. The tips Baba is giving in the text we looked at are tips to keep the right focus and not to fumble around.

If we listen to Baba, we don’t send book around about ‘think and get rich’ and go to Prasanthi Nilayam year after year for even five weeks pretending to be a devotee and we don't listen to him. If we want to be seen as devotees and we know it is fumbling around, we should actually listen to Baba’s message. If we listen to Baba and we mislead others and we are just delaying our journey and even worse we go again Baba’s mission to know the ‘truth’ and delay also others journey, it is not right action. Because the fumbling around is about untruth and he is there to lead us from untruth to truth, from darkness to light, from death to immortality. If we don’t listen, we are like the father of Prahlada, we begin to fight God instead of listening to God.

We cannot not listen to Baba and be a devotee, if we do not listen we are on the other side of it, that is the law of nature. If the mind doesn't go upwards direction of God, it goes downwards in the sense, that is natural law.

If we don't do the right thing, we do it wrong, no decision is also a decision as the path of least effort or no effort is also a reaction and the result is devastating if Baba tells us to help ever and hurt never and to go for human excellence. If we don't listen to Baba, we are not a devotee, but a demon. Baba said that he is the man who comes in our dreams to awake us. How does that inner awakening happen?

He said in my dream, not in the interview, in the dream, so he was the man who was in my dream to awaken, ‘I am that insight and I am the following step’.If in the insight is, ‘I am the One’ – it is Baba and we know it, he is the One. He told us many times, but what happens if he tells us in the dream? If he is telling it with words we think ‘he is God’ and I am man. There is the body difference. If he tells in our dreams, ‘I am that One’ – the conclusion is – there is only one ‘I’ and not a different body. The awakening happens in the dream, because there is no body and no mind.

If we get aware in the insight that there is only one ‘I’ – we also realize that we all are that, there is no difference, it is the reality of the ‘I am that’ and we all are that. It is a conclusion from the inner view, inner seeing is the result, insight and that is as well the following step, he is the wisdom and we listen to him and it has to be absorbed. He is the man in our dream who is there to awake us and when that awakening is happening, it is also him and not different from him and not only our intellect. He is the insight and he is also the right answer.

For the mind it is difficult to understand until we get aware that there is only One and the mind is gone. If we have that insight of Baba in the dream, ‘I am the One’ and we sit quietly and meditate what happens actually? We know that everybody is that same ‘I’ and it results in the insight that there is only the higher self, all the same, it is a universal level and divine and oneness. The Jivatma, our own individual higher self and soul has expanded to the universal unlimited and eternal soul and that is he and divinity, it is the same and that experience we make in singing Bhajans, we are singing for one only. What happens if we are all the same, there are no differences and that is why we merge and that can happen in eleven seconds if we know that we are the same.

There is no difference and getting aware of it is divine and bliss. So the insight is Baba, but also the merging and bliss resulting from it, the following step is Baba, it means the insights are on the higher self level and the understanding of it and bliss, the oneness is also on that higher self level. And bliss is God and better than anything else can be on the level of the world. 

Thus Prahlada tells the father that he has conquered the whole world, but not his senses and there is no bliss, it is all empty and hollow.

It is like Baba said when he left the body, ‘no more husband, nothing left but an empty Western shoe’, there is nothing in an empty Western shoe, it is hollow, just empty shoes and the husband is another level, that is why husband is God. Nobody only focused on material stuff and who is thinking that being rich is the solution to all problems can be a ‘husband’, if we are only focused on richness and wealth and outer material level there is nothing left but an empty Western shoe, it is like with Prahladas father, the demon, he is also only focused on the world and riches and not on truth and divinity and he even hates his son and tries to kill him by all means in many ways afterwards until God came in the form of the lion and killed the father to protect his devotee.

Empty Western shoes is thinking that they are devotees, when they have not even understood the ABC of Baba’s teaching that we actually have to listen to him to be a so called Baba devotee. If we just think about money we are a money addict, but not a Baba devotee. We are a devotee of the world and the outer values and not of the Lord and truth.

It is the same fight between the demon and his son, who is later destroyed by divinity taking the form of a lion.If we are not focused on truth and divinity, but on wealth and riches, we will not get to the right insight by the man who is in our dream to awake us ‘I am the one’. It cannot be there if our focus is on the mind level and ‘think and get rich’ is all on the mind level only.

We can only get the insight and reflection in the dream of ‘I am the One’ if we are focused on truth and we go beyond the mind. That is why self-discipline is needed. Human life is granted to know, ‘I am I’. If we focus on how to get rich …, whatever the reason, we miss the purpose of being human and we don’t learn the lesson. Instead of living a fulfilled life it gets empty and sad like an empty Western shoe.

Every symbol Baba mentions in the dream has a meaning and in the last few days a few ‘pictures’ came alive and get into a deeper meaning and all that is not possible if we do not listen, think it over and absorb. If we do not use discrimination between mind and God first and see it in our own life second and third go on no matter what obstacles are there.

He is telling us that Atma reacts, reflects and resounds. It is a mirror and a non-changing mirror and the moving and relative objective world reflects – like Darshan – in the mirror of Atma. What we see in the dream is the reflection of it and as it is a reflection the mind cannot understand it. That are pictures, it reflects in pictures and we have to listen to find the same reflection in Baba’s words and by that we get the picture which is the same in his words and in our own dream and that is when it becomes testified experience. Everything else is nothing but developing the imaginative faculty of the mind. That is what Baba tells, that are all Baba’s words and I don’t change it in purpose to repeat the same words again and again to make it understood that these are Baba’s words and not mine.

If we would listen and think it over we would get to the same conclusion and why, because there is only One. ‘I am I’ if Baba reflects in my dream as ‘I am the One’ when I wake up as there is only one and the same ‘I’ – it is translated differently insight, in the inner view we actually don’t think about the One – but we see – seeing not thinking – we see only one ‘I’.

Outside the intellect hears only ‘one’ – not two – insight seeing is only one ‘I’ and nothing but that.

There is no difference between us we are all the same One – we are all the ‘I am that’ and we all can tell what Baba tells us, ‘I am I’ and if we realized it – I am the one I am. It is the same ‘I’ which is also present in you and there is no difference and in that wisdom is Baba.

First is the word, ‘I am who I am’ also in the Bible or ‘I am that’ and the word is with God, only God can know it and get aware of it, as it is ‘pure love’.The demon hates God and doesn’t know ‘pure love’. And if we listen to the word and the principle in the word, the word is God.

If we get aware that ‘I am I’ and we are two or three in Baba’s name together and thinking it over and there is only One, he is in the midst of it.

The eleven second effect is happening when we get aware that there is only One … the thoughts stop and the merging is happening and that is God. If the insight is ‘I am that One’ and we focus on God – that insight – means we merge in oneness and that is the following step, we are all one and the same higher self and if we get more into it we can experience everything in our own self and see it happening actually inside as part of the self, but it has to be testified experience and not just developing the imaginative faculty of the mind.

That are Baba’s words.The word is God and we have to listen and think it over to be able to absorb the wisdom in our own self. Baba said in an interview, where bliss is there is God.If the man in our dream who is there to awake us is there as, I am the One, we merge in that reality in only eleven seconds as Baba said if we focus on the divine, but we have to know how to focus and we have the experience of a divine Darshan.

If we hear the ‘I am the One’ on the outside word level we hear - only one and not two. If we have the insight of it, the inner view and he is telling us, ‘I am that one’ we actually don’t hear the same, we see that there is only one ‘I’ and it is not even a question of two, we see only that there is no difference. Only the oneness matters in the insight, on the mind and word level only the difference matters. In the insight we feel that there is only one ‘I’ and my ‘I’ is the same and if there is only one ‘I’ and my ‘I’ is also that, there is nothing but ‘that’ – all ‘I’ are included in that oneness. It is a different way of seeing it in the inner view than we understand it on the outside level. Inner view, not outer view, inner view not interview …, the inner view has the power to awaken and that is why Baba is telling, I am that man who comes in our dreams to awaken. The insight, not outer sight is seen as ‘I am I’ and if we make that experience in the inner view, the intellect knows that there is only ‘one’ and we all are part of that one and as Prahlada is telling us here:

He who illumines everything, He who finally absorbs everything with Himself, is the One, Lord Narayana. Having Him always in mind and experiencing the bliss thereof awards fulfillment to all.