I am That

Maharaj: I met my Guru when I was 34 and realised by 37.
Q: What happened? What was the change?
M: Pleasure and pain lost their sway over me. I was free from desire and fear. I found myself full,
needing nothing. I saw that in the ocean of pure awareness, on the surface of the universal
consciousness, the numberless waves of the phenomenal worlds arise and subside beginninglessly
and endlessly. As consciousness, they are all me. As events they are all mine. There is a
mysterious power that looks after them. That power is awareness, Self, Life, God, whatever name
you give it. It is the foundation, the ultimate support of all that is, just like gold is the basis for all gold
jewellery. And it is so intimately ours! Abstract the name and shape from the jewellery and the gold
becomes obvious. Be free of name and form and of the desires and fears they create, then what
remains?
Q: Nothingness.
M: Yes, the void remains. But the void is full to the brim. It is the eternal potential as consciousness
is the eternal actual.
Q: By potential you mean the future?
M: Past, present and future -- they are all there. And infinitely more.
Q: But since the void is void, it is of little use to us.
M: How can you say so? Without breach in continuity how can there be rebirth? Can there be
renewal without death? Even the darkness of sleep is refreshing and rejuvenating. Without death
we would have been bogged up for ever in eternal senility.
Q: Is there no such thing as immortality?
M: When life and death are seen as essential to each other, as two aspects of one being, that is
immortality. To see the end in the beginning and beginning in the end is the intimation of eternity.
Definitely, immortality is not continuity. Only the process of change continues. Nothing lasts.
Q: Awareness lasts?
M: Awareness is not of time. Time exists in consciousness only. Beyond consciousness where are
time and space?
Q: Within the field of your consciousness there is your body also.
M: Of course. But the idea 'my body', as different from other bodies, is not there. To me it is 'a
body', not 'my body', 'a mind', not 'my mind'. The mind looks after the body all right, I need not
interfere. What needs be done is being done, in the normal and natural way.