SC: You stress the importance of being aware of the feeling of existence moment to moment (unarvin thodarbu). But it is not something that is commonly stressed by many Jnanis. Something like Zen seems to stress this more. Why is that?  Mahaprabu started talking in depth about his experience.

Mahaprabu: I don’t know anything. I don’t know Zen. I don’t know Patanjali. Nothing I know (referring to prior enlightenment).

SC: But how did this need to be in Unarvin thodarbu arise in you?

Mahaprabu: It came. Only one thing I found in me. I am able to feel that I was receiving some commands, some instructions from inside, beyond my control and based on those instructions I am acting. This I realized first. This was the STARTING POINT.  On many occasions I am able to observe that some kind of instruction is coming from inside and based on those instructions given by something which is inside, I am acting. I don’t know if by following that instruction I will get a benefit or not. It may lead to a good path or a bad path I don’t know. But from the time I came out of childhood, when I started to know things, from then onwards I felt this. Except when sleeping, some voice inside me is giving instructions and I am following that.

SC: Even for trivial tasks?
Mahaprabu: Yes, for everything. Another thing I observed is that EVERYONE is functioning this way too. Some instructions are coming from inside. Attending to these instructions is how everyone is functioning. This is how the whole system is functioning.

The second thing I observed is that even if I want to be peaceful, i.e. stay quiet without thinking, something still keeps thinking. These are the two things that came to my attention from young.

I should be the Boss. If I am the Boss, I should think whenever I need thinking and whenever I don’t need to think, the thinking should stop. If I am the Boss I have to be in control and function according to those decisions. But based on my observation some instructions are coming and I am following that and based on that I am functioning. If so I am not the Boss. Whether I am a Boss to me or not? This was the very first question that came to me. Not devotion, not anything else.

This is how it is happening to all, but the difference between me and others is that I am taking this up as something important. Others are not giving importance to this. Everyone is thinking ‘they’ are giving the command and ‘they’ are executing it. But for me, I felt I was a separate person. In fact I strongly believed I was a person. I was the owner of the body. I am the hero of my own journey. But in spite of that, beyond me so many instructions are coming. The decisions are not taken by me. Before I even think it gives me something and says, ‘Do it.’ Then I do it.

And what I found is that when I think and make a decision, compared to when IT makes a decision, the energy and power is much greater.

SC: Please give me an example.
Mahaprabu: So many examples. If I see a girl and think that she is attractive, then I am able to feel that as a person I am thinking about the girl. I am the owner for this thinking. When I am the owner, I am able to feel the less amount of energy behind that thought. I know this is my own thinking. Yes, she looks nice, she is well-dressed. But there is no power behind that thought. I am not able to feel an energy. On the other hand, when I am not paying attention to a girl, say I am in a bus and accidentally I see this girl crossing. At that point, as a person I am not starting any thinking process. But some kind of thinking is coming inside me with tremendous energy which I have not felt when I was thinking of a person on my own. Like this in every matter it would happen. For example, there is some money on the ground. I think, someone left it there. Poor man he must be suffering. I should give it to the owner. These thoughts have no force, no energy behind them. The money is like paper. For these thoughts I am the owner, I can feel it. One day I was very sleepy. Got off a long bus journey. On the road I found a gold dollar (piece that is strung to a necklace). As a person I am sleeping. But something inside from me is telling me it may be gold. Take it and see. I am able to feel tremendous energy. Even now it is someone’s property. I picked it up and see the brand Tanishq, a TATA company. No one is there around. It was 1 am. The inner mechanism which was strong, asked me to put it in my pocket. I put it in my pocket. But the thinking mind was dull and had a doubt whether it was even gold. The next day the wife washed my shirt. There was a noise in the washing machine. She reached into the pocket and found this dollar (a pendant). She said it looks like gold to me. Mahaprabu said ‘who would throw away gold’ and didn’t pursue that topic further. I forgot all about it. A few days later she brought it up again. I said why bother, throw it in the dustbin. I had no energy towards that. After about a week she went to a goldsmith and asked him how may grams this would be? He said about 4 or 5 grams, about half a sovereign of gold. Now she’s getting the energy! She was so excited. Gold, Gold! For 10 days you have been ignoring it, she told me. But at that moment I was able to recollect on that day that the strong feeling was that it was gold. But my thinking mind did not feel that. See, IT was right.

Like this in so many instances I would observe the difference. So, who is the Boss? I am not the Boss. If I am not the Boss, then who is the Boss? I am thinking that this person (pointing to the body) is the Boss. But I am weak, not strong. And I can see somebody coming with energy, which I cannot match. That’s when I realized there is something powerful inside, where these commands are coming from.

I decided one thing: One hour we will sit. A strong oath was taken. For 1 hour I should not talk about anything with me. Here ‘I’ refers to the ‘person’. This was a tremendously strong decision. And once I implement this, if still thoughts are generated (if I didn’t generate them), it means they are being generated somehow inside me. Which means I am able to find two people. One is me, who is clear that I won’t think. I was honest about that decision. I knew that having made the decision I will not think for sure.

SC: Wondering, that determination is so difficult. For me it is hard to tell whether I thought the thought or it came from elsewhere).
Mahaprabu: It was very clear for me. My decision was very strong and I was very honest to that decision. So, if I was the single Boss, then no thoughts should come. If thoughts came, then someone else is the Boss. This was where my journey started. Instead of Ramanar’s ‘Who Am I’, the question to me was: Who is the Boss inside? How is he? Does he have a form, or a color? All these days have I not seen him?

Like this the investigation continued. Then after a point the Boss was no longer important to me. What mattered was the place where the thoughts came from. The Boss was only an idea. Somebody is commanding. That was the issue. Not the idea of a Boss. Then I began to focus like a laser on that Source where thoughts were coming from. As the focus became deeper and deeper and more deeper, I disappeared. Some inner system is there, and I am there as a person turning my attention towards it. This is my job now.

As this continued for a long time, I understood that there are two things: An inner system and the Brain. The inner system is the Boss. The Brain is the Servant. That’s all the Brain is. That’s why he has less energy. Because it is a dummy. It is an instrument. It can observe whatever is happening. That’s all. The Servant can observe what the Boss is doing, and the Servant can never become the Boss. That’s all.

This practice continued at great depths very often during the day. I would go deeper and deeper towards the source of the commands (the Boss) and disappear. I could feel that I was moving towards the location, but not the location. Moving towards the location alone was in my hands, and at one point that which was moving also disappeared. What was moving towards the location? It was the brain. So at some point the brain that was going towards the location, that brain itself disappears.

But I knew that the location, that source of commands should have still been there. It wouldn’t have disappeared just because the brain disappeared. The brain was not exposed to it. This made me think ‘OK, I should keep moving towards the source, but I should not disappear, I should not disappear. This needs more alertness.’  Later I found out why the brain was disappearing. It was exactly like sleep. When you lie down to sleep, the brain thinks about various things. The brain is working but slower and slower. At one point the brain stops. Then we are happy. We don’t care about where the brain went etc. We happily sleep. This is happening every day. And now in the name of dhyanam what am I doing? With the same brain, I am searching for this location. And while searching it disappears. So what is happening is that the Brain is going to sleep just like it does at night. After some time I would wake up. I was searching for something but disappeared on the way. How will I ever find it?

When I realized it was sleep that was making me disappear, my goal became ‘I should not sleep’. This is villipu unarvu. This is Awareness. I became more alert. Total attention of the brain was there while watching. There was a total focus on the source. I, the brain did not even move toward IT anymore. The brain just stayed there. Sleep was just an aspect of the brain. So really nothing was going towards and nothing was disappearing. i.e. the Brain was always there. It did not move and it did not disappear. Sleep was just a modification in the brain. Because of that modification, it appeared as though I went in and disappeared.

Now the brain was totally alert and watching. Something beyond the body which does not have any muscles, IT comes. IT occupies. IT speaks. IT feels. IT moves. IT wants. IT occupies. (Please listen to this below to get a sense of the tone in which Mahaprabu said these words. Then he instantly went into Samadhi as we have seen many times. After a while he resumed. And as always, he resumes amazingly exactly where he left off. The noise is the fan in that small room).

Mahaprabu: A person thinking as a person. Records about a person disappeared. Because it is a mere record in the brain. Once the brain realizes who is the real Boss, it no longer is interested in recording what the person is doing. This is how personhood goes away. The center which is nameless, formless, independent of time and space and doesn’t have any limits, this center is the Boss. It is living, it is going, it is coming. Coming and going is only determined by the movement of the body but actually there is a stillness. In that angle it is not going it is not coming. It is living. No more confusion in the brain. No two. Only one. IT is the owner. It has every right to use all parts of the body INCLUDING THE BRAIN. The brain understands this and drops personhood. No more two.

As long as there is two, due to that duality, that separation, everything will appear as two extremes. That is why everyone is able to feel happiness and suffering. Actually there is only one thing. How can you find suffering in happiness? You can’t. Either there should be suffering or happiness. If there was only suffering, it cannot include happiness. And vice-versa.

SC: But we attribute that to time. An hour ago I was happy. Now I am suffering.
Mahaprabu: That’s what. Because there is duality you feel that way. Whenever the Boss is coming out, he feels joy. Whenever this personhood comes, and things don’t happen according to its wishes, it feels like it is suffering.

SC: This disappearance of joy is called suffering.
Mahaprabu: Yes. You are not suffering actually. Not experiencing joy does not mean there is suffering, but you are defining that there is suffering. So where is this part called Suffering?
SC: It is in the brain.
Mahaprabu: So is there any real suffering?
SC: My God. There isn’t.
Mahaprabu: Yes. Suffering is where?
SC: Just an idea!!  (At this point Mahaprabu began laughing for some time…)

This is what I have been saying all this time. How can there be two things? The definition you have given to suffering is wrong. Can joy become absent? No. It is a permanent one. How can a permanent one become absent? Your brain was not able to see the presence of the joy. It defines that as ‘Joy is absent’. The Joy is not absent. The fact that the Brain did not focus on it, makes the Brain to believe, to say that Joy is absent. This is purely a confusion. Once this confusion is clearly understood, gone, then it is over.

SC: Wow it is just an idea. It’s like there is light everywhere, but I close my eyes and say there is this thing called darkness, and I suffer it.
Mahaprabu: Yes. Now, where did we start this discussion: You asked why so many jnanis don’t speak about this moment-to-moment Awareness. They say different things. Not many focus on Unarvin Thodarbu. The reason I told you all this now, is to show you how I reached here. This is how I sat and did this.

SC: (Thinking to himself) Even though he has told me and I understood it at a certain level of the brain, still the confusion is there. Only way is to sit and DO for myself what Mahaprabu did. Mere listening and knowing about it won’t do a thing.

Mahaprabu: So, where is the clarity needed? Deep in your brain. There is no problem in Existence. It always IS. The confusion is in the brain. Whether your brain gets cleared of the confusion or not, does Existence care? It lives on.

SC: Then when you stress devotion, what do you mean in terms of the Boss and Servant? Does it mean that the brain is submitting to the Boss?

Mahaprabu: If you really realize that you are the Servant and that there is a Boss, what would you do? You will start doing whatever the Boss says. You will start sweeping, cleaning etc. You will be in Surrender. There won’t be any confusion about whether you are a Servant or a Boss anymore. You are the Servant he is the Boss. But now you have a confusion. Sometimes you are feeling like you are the Boss. Other times you feel like a Servant. See how funny. The Servant himself is confused about whether he is the Servant of the Boss. The Boss will never have this confusion. It is the Servant who is confused! (laughing)

SC: So looking back… in your case, the one that put all this effort in the first place, the effort to find all this, that’s the brain too correct?
Mahaprabu: Definitely. Does the Boss need any effort? Confusion is where? In the brain. Who is suffering? The brain. So who wants the remedy? The brain. Who will put the effort toward that remedy? The brain.

SC: But then the thought to do all this research came from the brain too. Therefore it would not have had that much energy (compared to the instructions coming from IT.)
Mahaprabu: That’s why I told you, I had to sit for hours and hours for a long part of my life. Sitting was my profession. (Long silence)

This whole thing is a confusion

Once the personhood record goes from the brain, there is crystal clarity in the brain. Everything becomes clear. What is the source of the confusion? The record that you are a person. Which makes you think that you are the Boss. You have no doubt at all that you aren’t the Boss. But the Boss is somebody different!! When you don’t have any doubt how would you even know to search for a Boss. ‘I am the Boss’ is your basis. It is the record that makes you think you are the Boss. So that record has to be cleared.  This is why the first instruction of Mahaprabu’s teaching is Nabarthanmayin adipadayil seyal paduvadhai muzhuvadhumaaga vittu pazagudhal. Getting used to performing all actions without the idea of a person.

Till that record was there, the thinking process goes on like it is the Boss. So it never cares or knows about the real Boss. And the real Boss continues to live. Due to that duality, You Are absent to the Joy. The presence of the Brain, the attention of the Brain is not on the Joy. But it is searching for Joy. Because it is thinking that we are not in the joyful state. That’s why it keeps searching. Because the Boss is Joy. And the taste of Joy also was recorded in the Brain by the Boss (Laughing).

So this entire thing is a confusion, a malfunction that happened in the brain. This is the real disorder. When this clears, the brain will be a muscular brain. It will not be a Boss. It will not take thinking in its hand. It will turn off. Now the Boss will come freely, 24×7. He will come into the brain and use it when needed, like using the eyes, using the nose.  As the Boss has his own freedom, he may come at any time to the brain. And he may not come. Then the brain will be turned off to thinking. Then there is no rush (padattam) at all. Why is there no padattam? Because there is always a joyful state here (pointing to the heart). So there is no need to search outside. Even now when you seek joy outside, e.g. eating a bun-butter-jam (a common delicacy here), an external object you are really kindling the joy inside. You don’t know that. But I know very clearly that the joy is not there. I am the joy. It is a bun, flour, a physical substance.

SC: When you say ‘I’ who are you referring to? The Brain?
Mahaprabu: NO, The Boss. I am the Boss. No confusion. There is no Servant here.

SC: Brain is just like the eyes!
Mahaprabu: Yes, just like the fingers.

SC: That’s it. We cannot understand this with the brain, since the problem itself is this thinking pattern of the brain. How can the Servant ever feel like the Boss! He is never the Boss!

SC: When I try to observe ‘Who is the thinker’ at that point the one searching disappears. It happens every time although am unable to stay that way for long. But when you searched, you compared your disappearance to sleep.

Mahaprabu: I was talking about how it was in me. That doesn’t have to be the same with you. You just have to keep it up. When you disappear, stay there. Like Sadhu Om says, Ninaipadhu yaar endraya ninaipadhu nindru pogum. When you look at who is thinking, the thinking stops. Ninaipilla podhum needhan irrupadhil ayyam undo. There is no doubt that you exist, even when thinking stopped. Ninaipezum moolam idhil nilaypadhe nilayai nillu. Stay in the source where thoughts originate. If there was no Boss, no Existence, will the brain think? No. So ninaipezum moolam, the source from which the thoughts arise, meaning the Boss. Nilaipadhe Nilayam Nillu means ‘Be the Boss‘

Now when you say ‘I disappear, but am unable to stay that way for long’, what is the reason? So far when we say brain, all the while we are talking about what? The memory depositions (Ego). Those can be cleared out of the way momentarily to give you some silence. But that is not total, nor does it last long. Because of the Mental Depositions (Vasanas). So getting rid of the memory depositions (idea of a person, D – refer to the Talk titled ABCD’s for a great understanding of the fundamentals) alone is not enough.

SC: Even if D goes, B remains.
Mahaprabu: Yes. The Vasanas have to go too. When I went deep, I saw that too. (SC Amazed) Who was watching that too? The Brain. The Brain is keenly observing. At that time it is not playing its games. Totally alert. It sees that the Boss is unable to flow freely, due to these Vasanas. It found that the Boss itself is not free! The Boss is in prison. Due to the Vasanas. So just like there is a disorder here (pointing to head), there is a disorder here also (pointing to the heart). That disorder also has to be fixed. Only then that STILLNESS will prevail. Only then no matter what happens there will be a STILLNESS. Then you will feel a dynamic stillness. Inside sensitivity – Outside activity. A perfect Balance. This is called Zen. That will happen. Till then, the confusion will continue. The difference is that now the brain will wait. For its part, the brain won’t add to the confusion. The brain will understand what is under. The brain will accept. It will wait. Even though the Boss is having his freedom he is in sickness. This is symbolized by the thorns around the heart when Jesus is depicted. So he should get cured. This curing has to happen.

SC: If the Boss himself is sick who can cure him?
Mahaprabu: God through the Master. That’s why even though he is the Boss we say he is the Jiva and He is Siva. Siva himself has trapped himself in sickness and became a Jiva.

It is like this: A bird can fly. It knows to fly. But it is in the cage. Just because it is in a cage, has it lost the ability to fly? No. Yet is it able to fly? No. This is just to understand, so don’t take it literally. The state of the Jiva is just like that bird.

SC: And the cage that we think we are in, is imaginary correct? Our own creation?
Mahaprabu: No. It is not a mental creation. The cage in the example is iron bars. But here the cage is not imaginary. It is a sickness. Jealousy, tit-for-tat, anger etc. Will the Brain feel jealous (pointing to the head) or will the center (pointing to the heart) feel jealous?

SC: The center.
Mahaprabu: Yes, the brain may kindle a thought that leads to the jealous feeling, but that feeling is not in the brain. It is deep in the mental depositions that have formed over several janmas.

How healing happens

Before the brain has attained clarity, a jealous thought created by the brain (who is the Servant thinking himself to be the Boss) will kindle the jealousness in the heart. The feel from there will merge with the thought in the brain and come out. In this way the brain helps the sickness to grow. This is how mental depositions get stronger. But once the brain gets clarity, i.e. the memory depositions in the brain go and those disorders are cleared, even though the mental depositions (vasanas) are there, now the brain will not support the sickness to grow further. Healing starts now. The brain helps the healing. Only now the brain starts to act like a Servant with devotion.

SC: All these negative emotions like Jealousy etc, come when we take ourselves to be a separate individual. Where did that first separation happen?
Mahaprabu:  Laughing. In this total cinema, somewhere in the past, it slipped. Due to lack of alertness. That’s why if you are not careful, there is a good chance to go back. That is why a Jnani, even after enlightenment is very alert so it doesn’t happen again. See, if it has happened once there is every chance for it to happen again, right?

What is needed is this. Clarity in the brain. Purity in the heart. Then there will be integrity. A wholeness. Without this wholeness you feel sick mostly. You don’t feel Joy a lot correct? It is like that bird continuously trying to fly in the cage, its wings are bruised and bleeding from the continuous effort to fly. Will it feel joy? And how can it enjoy flying? So, the cage has to be broken. Then when it flies, it will feel the joy of flying in the sky. The cage is not imaginary. It is real. It is a disease. There comes devotion. The cure. The Boss has to beg. The bird has to cry for help so it can be released from the cage. Releasing the bird from the cage is the greatest help. It does not want any help with flying. It needs to come out of the cage. That is why Paramahamsa cries and cries so much.

SC: Who breaks the gate Mahaprabu?

Mahaprabu: You cry. That’s all. Does the bird care who opens the cage? Does it matter? Don’t take the example literally. When you cry the healing happens. One of the best healing medicine is Omkaram (Chanting Om for a long time several times a day). A great medicine for inner purification. I have not read this anywhere. It came automatically. When I went deep, I was able to find the sickness. I want to fly but am unable. I wanted to fly but something is restricting it. I could feel the restriction. I started shouting. That shout created the sound Om. Om is the sound of the soul. In the beginning it is a soga-ragam (a sad raga) of the one who is sick. But as you shout it, chant it, again and again, it becomes a suga-ragam, a happy raga of the Om. Initially Om was an outlet. It comes on the way. Use it. I have not read anything. I sincerely, honestly went deep and kept going deep. Direct experience.

SC: In the beginning, you said you could clearly see the difference between a thought from your brain which had very less energy, versus a thought from the center which had a lot more energy; I am unable to see this difference.

Mahaprabu: It will come. You are on the way. It cannot be avoided. Now don’t measure and anticipate. It may come even tomorrow. And there is no rule that it should happen the same way for all. For example, there may be 10 bands in the path (bandwidth). The frequency of each band will be different for each. Because my vasanas can be totally different from yours. One may have a lot of vasanas around jealousy. For another it might be totally absent, but he may have a strong Kama vasana. You need to go deep. The memory depositions have to go. That is in your hands. Then there are the mental depositions. With the Guru’s help, when you are in total surrender, they can be destroyed. You don’t analyze the vasanas. You stay in surrender. Analyzing and going into your vasanas will keep you trapped. It is like the bird counting the number of rods in the cage, seeing what material they are made of, etc. None of this will help the bird come out of the cage. Even if the count is right!!

Only when you feel trapped like a bird in a cage, this is possible. The first help of the Master is that he will make you realize that you are trapped in a cage. At the outskirt, you may not see that as a help, but actually it is a help. Otherwise, you won’t even know you are in a cage and keep flying inside thinking you are free. Everyone around you is also pretending to fly in their cage that it has become normal to be that way.

Before meeting Mahaprabu and now, see how much your sitting practice has increased.
SC: Astronomically. I couldn’t sit for even 5 minutes. Most time was spent in reading more, watching YouTube videos, thinking, and talking. Everything but sitting.

Mahaprabu: And right now I am only working part-time and you are far away physically. Soon this will change and I will enter into this full-time. So imagine how much more can happen.

A long silence followed.