Swamiji: Happy New Year!

Everybody: Bolo Swami Shyam Sat Guru Maharaj kee jai!

Swamiji: Let us close our eyes for a minute. (Meditation)

Happy new universe to you! Up to this day, we kept our eyes open. We continued capturing time and space, using our lips and speaking, using our ears daily and hearing a lot of information through television and newspapers. Our eyes and ears were open to get more scenes and more words. Our brain or thinking vehicle remained in contact with the meanings we gave to what we had seen and thought. It may have been the fall season, the rainy season, or the dry season, but we remained busy with the mind’s activities, concluding the meanings of what we had heard and making them positive or negative.

What we are hearing now is that last year just passed half a minute ago. But this moment is very new and very fresh, and we came to know that what was before was never there. It is said that that which is past is dead, but it would be dead if it had been there. But the past was not. We appear to have done nothing in the past. We also do nothing in the future. Whatever has been done was always in the present, always in the present.

In the presence of whom? We never paid attention to that unless the voice of Guru, the voice of the Sky, the voice of the Unknown, the voice from Beyond was heard. We never paid attention to: “In whose presence did my vision see? In whose presence did my ears hear? In whose presence did my legs move? In whose presence did my hands begin to grasp? In whose presence did my tongue taste good food? In whose presence was the fragrance of the flower smelled?” We remained busy with the activity of the body and the system of the senses, but the forgetfulness was so strong and deep and solid that our heart was never open to the one who is the ever-present Lord. 

In the presence of him, in the presence of the all-permeating Being, our bodies continued working and our human I in the waking state assumed to be the ego-personality. We call that Being the form of knowingness. When you are in deep sleep, there is no form of knowingness; no form, or aakaar, no size, no objective reality. When you wake up, form arises. The first form is of what? Of consciousness.

You have forgotten that this consciousness was absolute in deep sleep, absolute before you took birth, and has been forever present. Its presence was never traded and never caught. It has always been. But the moment we landed on earth from the womb of our mother, utter forgetfulness or sleep took place. That sleep is not just like sleep-consciousness, but it is a form of consciousness.

Whenever your form of consciousness arises, you see the world before you. That shows that if a form of consciousness disappears or has not arisen, the world will not be seen and known. When you are in the state of happiness of the universal Self, from there you watch that there is no world because no consciousness has appeared. It is all absolute.

We are on the path of changing the hour- and minute-hands of the clock, and we call it time, which exists nowhere. Who says this? The voice of eternal Presence. In the presence of the eternal Being, there must be the eternal Being forever. But then where does time begin? It begins only when you are conscious early in the morning, or in the daytime, or at any time when you are not asleep. Thus, the very conscious mind of a human being is the source or means of seeing the world and calling it separate. If there is no awakened consciousness in the morning, then the world is not separate.

Where does the sense of separation lie? It lies in human consciousness in the waking state. Nobody tells you that this is the root cause of unfolding the sense of otherness in your own eternal Presence. You unfold consciousness, and the very unfoldment of pure Consciousness or eternal Consciousness is called glory. When the sun shines, the sunlight is the glory of the sun. When your conscious mind appears, it is the glory of the Self. Nobody tells you that this glory of the Self should not be known as separate by the Self, because the Self’s glory or sunshine is not separate. If the Self is the sun, then its sunshine is not separate. Thus, human consciousness is not separate. You can come to know this after getting the information that your consciousness as human consciousness is never separate from Me, the Self, and that the Self is always as it is. It has not become sunshine, it has not become the disappearance of the sunshine, and it has not become darkness. It is forever just the same.

At this moment in this year, after all the time has passed, we say that the year 2000 has passed. But where did it pass? Where did the new year arise? Where did time arise? Is it not eternal Presence? If it is eternal Presence, then why is it that as a brilliant human being, I or you or all are asleep in the same way that a sleeping person has no knowledge of who he is? The same is the case in the waking state, where deep sleep, forgetfulness, and darkness still linger on and on, yet somebody said that you woke up. You actually did not wake up. It is still deep sleep, but it is a variety of that happening. The dream state is one variety of deep sleep and the waking state is another kind of deep sleep; deep sleep is still going on. Why? Because in deep sleep you do not know eternal Presence, in the dream state you do not know eternal Presence, and in the waking state you also do not know eternal Presence. Then what should I call it, if not sleep? Thus, humanity as a whole is still sleeping.

That is where the work starts of the person who is awake. In the waking state he is awake to the fact that he is eternal Presence, in the dream state he is awake to the fact that he is eternal Presence, and in deep sleep he is awake that he is eternal Presence. If you are one person from head to toe, but your head is one part, your stomach is another part, and your leg is another part, it does not mean that you became three. If eternal Presence is eternal Presence and one part is deep sleep, one part is the dream state, and another part is the waking state, it does not mean it has been divided into three parts other than eternal Presence.

We are so fortunate as human beings that we feel. Why? Because we are sure that the dream state, with its figures and the dreamer, does not last for a long time. We also have become aware, and remain aware, that the waking state of time and its dimension does not last. It is past and gone. Many situations that we once remembered are forgotten, and we know that the memory of them is not there. Why? We know that nothing happened, so why should their memory happen?

Thus, we know that the waking state is filled with the sense, existence, or presence of the eternal Being. The eternal Being is present in deep sleep, in the dream state, and in the waking state. The eternal Being is present in all the states of imagination and in the knowing and the forgetfulness of the names of things and forms. It is all eternal Presence.

What did we begin to call it as human beings? That which we are knowing in deep sleep. In deep sleep we know that the forms of the dream state exist, yet it is very obvious that when you are asleep, forms do not exist. If you are asleep, then the forms of the waking state do not exist, and you, the dreamer or waker, do not exist.

Then, what are you going to meditate on in this new year, which is fresh before you? It is in harmony with your body, for just as the body is an insentient substance, so the time of the year is insentient. Since whatever sentient aspect of understanding that was opened in the waking state is nothing but sleep, therefore this consciousness of a human being is unenlightened or is a state of deep sleep. The consciousness of the Master is not forgetful in the waking state, is not forgetful in the dream state, and is never forgetful in the deep sleep state. It is the Master Consciousness, and it has the Master knowledge. It has the Master key that can open all three states of consciousness, which are locked in deep sleep.

That Master key can open the heart and mind of a blocked human consciousness, which arises in the morning. In the waking state, its functioning immediately starts as, “Eternal Presence is nowhere. I am the only one conscious being, the ego-sense, who is right, who is correct.” In the light of the aware person, this is sleep. But a sleepy man in the waking state says, “Whatever I do is correct. Whatever I see is correct. Whatever I hear is truth. Whatever I grasp is truth. Whatever I do is truth”; whereas a person with darkness on the level of consciousness, or a person who is asleep, will not be able to find the light, the truth, or that eternal Presence which is Oneness throughout. The eternal Presence is one with deep sleep, therefore it has not become second to it. It is one with the dream state, so it has not become third to it. It is the same in the waking state, so it has not become fourth. It is the same.

This is the information, friends, that you have. This is what the teachings are: Self is as it is. It has never changed. The one who knows the Self calls the Self “you.” This you is forever as it is, forever as you are. You have never changed; that is why you are pure. You have never become bound in the second or third or fourth state of consciousness, so you are free. You have never changed into happiness, unhappiness, sadness, or suffering, therefore you are eternal Bliss.

I wish you all the happiness which eternal Presence keeps in itself. When the conscious state arises in wakefulness, then, as eternal Presence, it hides itself. It changes into the conscious human mind or human ego, and it functions negative to the nature of eternal Presence. There, you find it is non-eternal, transitory, short-lived, or a little longer-lived. It is born. The moment the sprout of the Self arises (the idea that the sprout arises from the seed is for the sake of an example that you can understand), you are sure that the sprout is not anything other than the seed. Therefore, if deep sleep arises from eternal Presence, this sprout is not separate from eternal Presence. If its leaves start sprouting, becoming thicker and bigger in the dream state, it does not mean that eternal Presence became cut off or separate or that this dream state is separate. The life of the dream state—the life of the whole tree—is not separate from eternal Presence. The same is the case with a human being: he is the same throughout.

The Master Consciousness knows this and speaks about it to all human beings when they begin to suffer due to the sense of separation and otherness, and when they become sick due to pain and fear. Whose responsibility is this? It is the duty of the one who knows that you are forever the same Self that he is, that you are never born and you will never die. The Self’s nature is Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. It is not necessary for it to announce this. But when we are awake in the waking state and remain asleep day and night, we have the trait of sleep consciousness or darkness, and we cannot see the truth, however hard we try after searching and searching in the thickest places or thinnest places.

We say that it either exists or does not exist. Existence and non-existence is the nature of the human sense of duality, which is nourished, which you are brought up with, and which gets perpetuated. Whoever comes calls my name and sees a form, and he or she treats this name and form as true. He asks himself how many years have passed and calls that his age, treating time as real, form as real, and name as real, and he completely forgets that he was not there at all. What happens? That which he has forgotten is obliterated and that which he sees with his eyes and hears with his ears—name and form—becomes the reality.

You can conceive of the state when words and language were not there. Then what was the value of the description of things? You want to hear the knowledge simply by hearing the words, and words and language have nothing to do with that which exists forever. You want to understand it through hearing language about the real thing, but language cannot speak about it, because it was not there. Words are not sufficient for you to hear and find out the Truth. That is why this year, at this time, we are maun, in silence, in meditation. And it becomes real, it becomes obvious, it becomes the full awareness with which you certainly know, “I am aware of Awareness.” Awareness has no form, because it is eternal Presence.

We sing the glory of the eternal Presence because it is universal. It was never born, thus it will never die. My message to all of you who are hearing me is that this year you remained enlightened, you became enlightened. You remained here at a time when there was light everywhere: light and light and light. Somebody is taking birth—it is light. Somebody is disappearing from the scene—it is light. Somebody is still there in the form—it is light.

You may not have heard the words and language, but what is happening at this time is that the Knower is throughout. The Knower has no formed existence and will never have it. The Knower does not speak and will never speak. The Knower does not hear and will never hear. Why? The Knower just is. I wish that this Is-ness should be retained, and then you can add anything. Is there departure? Is there residence? Is there location? Is there time? Is there space? Everywhere, Is alone is. 

I will stop by saying that the value of Is is eternal. You should only have the confidence that if your waking state of consciousness is tuned in to Is-ness, it is always Is-ness. It is eternal and deathless. When this is evolved on the level of human brilliance, you will see that you will never be frightened, you will never be afraid of nightmares, and you will never be afraid of the nightmares that you daily make in the waking state when you hear something. 

I am very pleased and happy. When I was listening to your songs, there was something more than there is at this time when I am speaking. Why? Your voices entered my heart. It was so pleasant, so pleasant, that my heart was, as if, exploding. Something very unique was happening.

Why am I saying this? Because I am speaking from that Space where I alone am, where Self alone is, where you alone are, where he alone is, where she alone is. There is no I, no ego, no mind, no intellect; they are all there for name’s sake. All that objective reality is a magical show at this time. We live with it, but we live with it knowingly. It is transitory: it is useful (transitory), it is satisfactory (transitory), it gives happiness (transitory), and it also gives you pain (transitory). Everything is short-lived.

If you remain awake and don’t waste a single breath, if you breathe in and breathe the universe, That alone is. If you breathe out, you breathe out the universe: That alone is. You just have the most wonderful and fortunate vehicle from the same Self with these two eyes and ears—a very healthy and happy tool with which to work. We unfold all the powers and never get caught in the idea that the vehicle is permanent. Every single breath will be useful and successful if you remember what I am saying.

You are eternal, you are pure, you are free, and you are very, very blissfully nice. Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. Thank you very much.

New Year's Eve, 31 December 2000