SWAMIJI: What do you say?

Larry: My mind, my mind and my ego, want to know the relationship they have (or it has) with the ‘I’ of the Absolute.

SWAMIJI: The Absolute has no ‘I’.

Larry: The ‘I’ . . .

SWAMIJI: There is no ‘I’.

Larry: All right, just the Absolute. What is the relationship between the mind and the Absolute?

SWAMIJI: The mind is a spatio-temporal projection of the Absolute. A spatio-temporal projection—a refraction, if you want to call it by that name. There is no such thing as ‘mind’, actually, in the same way as the mirror does not shine. The mirror shines only when lights fall on it. The light that shines through the mirror is the mind, but the light that is independent of the mirror is the Absolute. The relationship is simple. The Absolute Itself is shining as the mind through the mirror of space-time, and so there is no such thing as mind independently, even as there is no such thing as the light of the mirror. The mirror cannot shine; in the same way, the mind cannot think. It appears to think on account of the light reflected upon it by the Absolute through the space-time complex. So space-time is like the mirror, the mind is like the light on the mirror, and the Absolute is the original light that falls on it.

Larry: So my mind is a reflection of the Absolute.

SWAMIJI: Certainly, yes. You are thinking because of the light reflected in your mind by the Absolute.

Larry: And likewise, everybody else’s mind is a reflection of the Absolute.

SWAMIJI: Everybody’s mind also is like that only. Everybody, yes. All, uniformly.

Larry: So why does—I don’t know if this can be answered—but why does the Absolute choose to . . .

SWAMIJI: It never chose anything. And if you ask such a question, I will say It has done nothing, nor are you existing, finally. You are under an illusion that you are existing. That is the final stroke—to cut the Gordian knot. You should never ask the question “Why?”, because questions arise on account of the relationship between ‘cause’ and ‘effect’. You try to find a cause for an effect; that is why questions arise. But who told you that there is a cause for every effect? That is an imagination of your mind; concocted questions cannot be answered in any rational way. Questions are all projected by an erroneous perception of things. You cannot have a right answer to a wrong question. No question arises as to why it happened, because it never happened, finally. But you imagine that it happened; therefore, some sort of answer commensurate with that process has to be given. What is required in a person is psychoanalytical treatment, as they call it. Something is wrong in the thinking itself. Something has happened to you, and you will know it when it is rectified.

Larry: So, if nothing is happening, then really my mind is not here. And I am not here and you are not there.

SWAMIJI: Nothing is anywhere. If you really believe that you also don’t exist, you will have no problems; but you cannot believe that you are not existing. That is why these questions arise. You try to abolish the consciousness of your existence also, and let us see what happens. You will melt into the Absolute at that moment. Then you will never raise questions. But you are insisting that you are existing, so the problem is always there as a hurdle; then you have questions. Insistence that you are existing is another way of saying that you are insisting on independence from the Absolute. The whole problem is here. Let the Absolute think, and not Mr. Krauss. I told you in the morning about this technique of transferring your consciousness to the Universal Continuum rather than go on thinking through a personality or a body. Every thought of ours is an isolation from the Absolute. That is why no answer comes.

Larry: You have been able to transcend yourself and, therefore, you do not see . . .

SWAMIJI: I have no questions. I do not have doubts of any kind, and I never go and have darshan of anyone. I do not talk to anybody, and I am a fully satisfied person. I do not go and see people—great men or small men. I want nothing from anyone. By some mystery, I am satisfied. It is the blessing come from Swami Sivananda.

Larry: Do you exist?

SWAMIJI: I exist as the Absolute, and to exist in any other fashion is a mistake; and if that mistake has been committed, the earlier it is rectified the better. Constantly you must brood on this universality of your being. You do exist. Nobody says you don’t exist, but you exist in a different way than what you are thinking. You do exist, but not as you are thinking that you are.

Larry: Do we all exist?

SWAMIJI: Always.

Larry: All of us here exist?

SWAMIJI: There is no “all of us”. It is like many drops in the one ocean. If you say the entire ocean is nothing but many drops, okay. I have no objection to your saying “all of us”, but actually there are no drops in the ocean. It is only a theoretical concept. The ocean itself is a big drop, but you can conceive independent drops for the purpose of argument. So there is no such thing as “all of us”. We are like drops in the ocean which is conceptual.

Larry: If there is only one Absolute, then how can there be different consciousness?

SWAMIJI: I told you it is like waking becoming dream. Something has happened. While there are no mountains that you perceive in a dream (they are inside the head only), they look like external things. The one Universal Consciousness has somehow entered into this body, which is its own spatio-temporal pressure point, as I mentioned to you, and it is dreaming, as it were (everything is ‘as it were’—really it is not happening), just as mountains are not created by your brain in the dream state but somehow it looks as if the mountain is outside you. The world appears to be outside in the same way as a mountain looks outside in dream, while it is your mind only looking like a mountain.

Larry: So it is in my mind, or it is in the Absolute?

SWAMIJI: Your mind and It—you cannot separate them. It is the Universal Mind, you may say. They are not separate.

Larry: So when I speak to you . . .

SWAMIJI: It is one drop talking to another drop in the ocean itself.

Larry: So it is not just my dream, then?

SWAMIJI: When you think that you are a drop, and really isolated from the ocean, that is a dream; the dream is nothing but the conviction that the drop is isolated from the ocean. But if the drop knows that there is no such thing as the drop, that it is the ocean itself looking like a drop, you are awake. Many drops make the ocean; it is perfectly correct, yet there are no drops in the ocean. It is one mass. You can conceive it either way.

Sarah: The way you talk about the Absolute and us as an ocean appears to me as correct thinking. But this world as only a dream—there is so much going on in this world! So many experiences and evolutions . . .

SWAMIJI: All experiences are within the dream only; they are not outside it. You can be hungry, you can be thirsty, you can also die in dream—but nothing happens, really. People can feel that they are falling from a tree and break their legs, marry and have children, and become poor, and die, also. All these experiences one can have in dream. You wake up and see nothing has happened.

Sarah: But there is no substance?

SWAMIJI: There is no substance in dream—yes.

Sarah: No substance! Everything that is going on here in the world . . .

SWAMIJI: Nothing, nothing. It is substanceless, ultimately. It is a modification of consciousness that looks like this.

Larry: Is the Absolute choosing to dream?

SWAMIJI: Again you are asking the same question. It is like asking whether It is doing something. You should never put such questions. It never chooses anything. It just is. You are asking again and again the same question, why it happens. This question you cannot answer. You have to go deep into it and realise it yourself. The finite cannot answer the question regarding the Infinite. You have to enter into the finite and from the finite you have to enter the Infinite; then you will get the answer.

Larry: Is it possible in one’s lifetime to enter into the mind of the Infinite?

SWAMIJI: Yes, it is possible, if you are really eager to have it. Actually, if you are so eager to have it, you will sink into It, and day in and day out you will be only in It.

Sarah: How does it work that you can use the tools (instruments) of the dream world—you use the mind, you use purification techniques, you use other techniques . . .

SWAMIJI: They are all part of the mind only. If you use these techniques in the dream world, do you think they are all different things? Even if you use a vessel for carrying water in dream, that vessel is made of your mind only, even as the water in it. It has no substance. And the same thing will happen in the waking condition—all these vessels and instruments that you are seeing are made of the Cosmic Mind. They look like hard substances, but really they are not. The king and the beggar of the dream world are made of the same stuff.

Sarah: But how can they be used to get to the Absolute Consciousness?

SWAMIJI: These are methods that you are adopting to strike a harmony between yourself and the environment outside. Environment means the world. An instrument is only a tool that you are employing to assist you in striking a harmony between you and the world. You use various instruments for that purpose. The world is impinging upon you so badly that you feel hungry every day; then you use the instrument of food. And when the winter wind blows on you, you use the instrument of a blanket. You strike a balance between you and nature by using these techniques. Likewise, you will strike a balance between you and everything in the world by various methods that you are adopting—psychologically, physically, socially, or any way you like. Actually, whatever you are doing in this world is only an attempt to have a balance between you and the world outside, because, if for one minute you are out of balance, you will not be happy. You have to be in a state of balance with society, with your body, with your mind, your emotions, with every blessed thing, and with nature itself. The whole effort of life is nothing but a progressive movement towards harmony of personality with the environment outside in various degrees and stages. The whole thing that you are doing is a cosmic work. It is not some person doing, somewhere sitting in one corner. Every activity is a Cosmic Action taking place through every individuality, at all times.