The way of the bird

1.14 "Nothing is bad, nothing is good, because it is not."
Maharaj frequently said that there is no bad and no good in the world. By this, he meant
to remind us of how things are in reality. If something is not true, what meaning is there
in saying it is good or bad? The distinction is only valid for one who identifies with the
form of world, taking it to be true. Concepts of good and bad are nothing but imagination
and apply to nothing but illusion. In the purity and sacredness of the Self there is no
duality. In fact there is no concept at all in that Oneness.
1.15 "Mind always takes you out of the reality."
If you were a wave on the ocean and you started thinking of yourself as a separate
individual, you would live on the surface and be whipped about this way and that, and
you would lose touch with your reality, which is the water that you are made from. This
is what happens to the ignorant mind. It is not separate from Brahman, the universal
consciousness, but it has picked up the idea that it is separate. As long as this illusion
persists, the mind will continue to appear to take you out of the reality.
1.16 "The world you see is nothing but a reflection of reality. Reflection
cannot be true."
Here Maharaj offers another way to approach the idea that the world is not true. Reality is
absolute awareness, but it cannot perceive itself because it is One. In order for the
absolute knowledge even to know that it exists, it must manifest itself and become two.
The world is the mirror that the Absolute holds up in order to see Itself. The reflection
has no existence in itself. This act of manifestation is the creation of duality, and in
duality, the whole world appears. In the first chapter of the Amritanubhav, Jnaneshwar, the
great Maratha saint of the twelfth century, describes this appearance of the world as the
play of Shiva (the unmanifest Absolute) and Shakti (the manifest divine power):
Through Her,
The absolute void becomes the manifest world;
But Her existence is derived from Her Lord.
Shiva himself became His beloved;
But without Her presence,
No universe exists.
1.17 "When you say that the reflection is true, you are lost."
It would certainly be very strange if, when one saw one's face in a mirror, one were to
suppose that there was a person there. It is perfectly obvious that one is the cause of that
reflection. Yet this does not happen with the world in general. The mind is turned
outward and takes the reflection to be real and forgets that all appearance depends
entirely on the existence of the one who perceives it.
The root cause of the illusion of the world is forgetting your true Self. You remember
yourself and think of yourself as the body, the mind, and the ego. However, to remember