Awareness of the food and the eater

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DADAVANI

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February 2011 Year : 6, Issue : 4

Awareness of the food and the eater

Conti. Issue No.: 64

EDITORIAL In the worldly life interactions, if we ask a person who has already eaten, ‘Did you eat?’

Then he will say, ‘Yes, I ate’. Then if we ask him how was the taste of the food? What was the proportion of spices in the food? Then he can describe the saltiness, tartness or spiciness through the knowledge mediated by intellect. So, in fact, there are two divisions: the eater of the food and the knower. Physical body complex eats, the ego suffers (bhogavey) with only egoism that ‘I liked or disliked’ it.

Now, as long as one is the doer-sufferer, he believes that ‘I am eating’ and ‘I am suffering’ for sure. When one attains Atmagnan (Self-realization) at that time, ‘I’ comes in to the state of the Self, then one realizes that ‘I am not the eater’ but I ‘the non-eater’, am only the ‘knower’ of this. One is not ‘the eater’ yet to believe oneself to be ‘the eater’ is considered unawareness (ajagruti) and to ‘see’ and ‘know’ that ‘the eater’ is separate, is considered awareness (jagruti).

Both the gnani-agnani (Self-realized and non-Self-realized) have the nature of ‘knowing’ but as long as one has not attained Gnan (Self-realization), intellect knows and after Self realization pragnya (liberating energy of the Self) knows.

Therefore, revered Dadashri says that after Self-realization ‘the eater’ is eating and ‘the Self’ is only the ‘knower’. There is no problem if ‘Chandubhai’ (the self) eats but why should ‘the Self’ eat? We have to eat with the awareness that ‘the eater’ is eating. This is just that, since time immemorial one becomes engrossed due to false practice, therefore, awareness does not remain. The eater is separate, but one believes himself to be the eater and therefore, one becomes partial towards the eater, but how long can we let go of this mistake?

Revered Dadashri says that of the five senses, the sense of taste is the one which obstructs awareness the most. Excess food intake creates obstruction in awareness (jagruti), because the food, which goes in the stomach changes into alcohol and under the effect of its intoxication the awareness becomes veiled. Therefore, whoever wants to progress, has to maintain awareness in taking food, and be the non-eater in the process. There is the control of the mind while eating and thereafter there is the control of spiritual apathy (pramaad). So then, when will we have our control? Food that comes in your plate is dependent on vyavasthit (scientific circumstantial evidences), but it is one’s independent purushartha (the role of Being the Self) as to when and how much to take it. Now, whose mistake is there, after becoming a Purush if we do not exercise our purushartha? ... continue on next page Printed & Published by : Dimple Mehta on behalf of Mahavideh Foundation, 5, Mamtapark Society, Bh. Navgujarat College, Usmanpura, Ahmedabad-14.

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Published at : Mahavideh Foundation, 5, Mamtapark Society, Bh. Navgujarat College, Usmanpura, Ahmedabad-14.

DADAVANI

Why is it that we are not able to eat with awareness, which weakness is there, where a mistake is happening, how would be the upayoga (applied awareness as the Self) of the one who eats with awareness, how would the applied awareness of the Gnani Purush be in front of the eater, and how can we be in purushartha like that? This Dadavani, gives us the precise scientific understanding which will help us all to be in such purushartha. ~ Jai Sat Chit Anand

Awareness of the food and the eater { Please note that ‘S’ Self denotes the awakened Self, separate from the ‘s’ worldly self. The Self is the Soul within all living beings. The term pure Soul is used by the Gnani Purush for the awakened Self, after the Gnan Vidhi. The absolute Soul is the fully enlightened Self. The worldly soul is the self. In the same manner, ‘Y’ You refers to the awakened Soul or Self, and the ‘y’ you refers to the worldly self. This differentiation is unique to critical understanding of the separation of the Self from the self a/k/a the non-Self complex that is accomplished in the Gnan Vidhi of Akram Vignan.}

Who is the eater?

Dadashri: Did you eat?

Questioner: Yes. Dadashri: Who are you?

Questioner: I am Shuddhatma - pure Soul.

Dadashri: Then who ate the food?

Who had the meal?

Questioner: Chandubhai (the name of the relative self).

Dadashri: Is that so? Chandubhai ate, ‘You-the Self’ Self would know that, wouldn’t You? Questioner: Yes. Dadashri: Did you have awareness at the time of eating that this ‘Chandubhai’ (the relative self) is eating?

Questioner: No. Dadashri: There is no problem if Chandubhai eats, You should not eat. That which is not ‘Our’ nature, that which is not our gunadharma (intrinsic property that have a specific function), why should ‘we’ do that?

Did the awareness (jagruti) remain that the 2

eater (ahaari) ate food (ahaar)?

Questioner: In the beginning of eating, that awareness (jagruti) remains for sometime and then again it goes away.

Dadashri: In the beginning it will boost up a lot.

Questioner: Yes, complete separateness remains for a while.

Dadashri: Initially (after the Gnan Vidhi) for one to two years it will be like a great light (of awareness) and then, it will start to cool down (decrease). The karma take over and will decrease the awareness. In the beginning because the sin karma (paap) are burnt in the Gnan Vidhi, the awareness will prevail and dominate.

Questioner: In the beginning of eating, for two to three minutes the separation remains very well.

Dadashri: When the hunger is intense, then everyone will remain separate. Awareness comes when one is burning with hunger (bhookha) otherwise one is asleep all day long.

Questioner: Once one gets involved with nourishing the physical self (annamaya kosha) intoxication is verily the result, and February 2011

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thereafter, relative awareness (bhaan) decreases and leaves.

Dadashri: It changes into alcohol due to that. The alcohol like effect of food leads to decrease in awareness. After the food gets digested, after three to four hours, the relative awareness returns. And if one eats less then it digests early. If one eats less then his awareness will resume early. Main thing that hinders is verily this food.

Unawareness due to food Questioner: What is the relation between food and awareness (jagruti)?

Dadashri: All unawareness (ajagruti) is due to food only. And if one does not take food then he will have plentiful awareness even if he has not taken Gnan (The knowledge of the Self and of the doer through Gnan Vidhi in Akram Vignan).

Dadashri: Now, let me see you take more of this vegetable curry which is very salty.

If you love to eat potato vegetable and if it is salty then let me see you take it.

Questioner: Then I cannot take it.

Dadashri: So if the potato vegetable is salty then immediately it will bring ‘him’ (the inner one) in awareness that he does not like it.

Questioner: So at the time of eating the awareness is deficient, is that the reason excess food is consumed?

Dadashri: There is no awareness whatsoever. Where is the awareness at all, the whole day? It is just that you are staying (in awareness) a little because of the energy and brilliance (prataap) of this Gnan. For average results, Your awareness is very good.

The effect of food in Gnan

Questioner: Even if one has not taken Gnan?

Questioner: What is the connection between Gnan and food intake?

Dadashri: Yes, he will have tremendous awareness. One gets intoxicated due to food and he remains in its suppressive effect (ghen).

He becomes just like a log of wood the whole night.

Dadashri: Awareness can remain if one eats less, otherwise it cannot, can it?

Ask this person, ‘Did you get up during the whole night? Oh God! All illusions are Yours (not mine) ‘Rama tari maya’! All who sleep here, does anyone wakes up at night? It is just that one sleeps covered with bed sheet from head to toe. Who is there to question you?

What is the basis of awareness?

Questioner: It does bother me inside that I should take less food. Food should be eaten less. He (the one within) does have that understanding, but yet when he sits to eat, at that time he ends up eating more.

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Questioner: How big of an obstacle is food in maintaining awareness in Gnan?

Dadashri: A very big obstacle. Food is very obstructive because as food enters the stomach, it is converted into a form of alcohol and then its effect remains during the rest of the day. Otherwise, how can there not be awareness of the five Agnas that I have given?

What is a big a deal in that? And I have given the awareness to everyone, have I not? But there is a tremendous effect of food on one’s awareness. ‘We’ have not asked anyone to renounce food. If the renouncing happens on its own only then it is of worth.

Questioner: Are these Agnas followed very well by fasting?

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Dadashri: You do not have to fast everyday otherwise all these Agnas will be eaten up in the stomach, it will go in the stomach, and all the Agnas will be burnt in the fire of the stomach.

Some people feel desire to drink tea the moment they see it and some people do not feel like drinking it at all, what is that? It is because of parmanus are demanding from within.

Questioner: It will become a routine.

Who is going to toilet? The Self? All this happens to prakruti, and what do people say? ‘I went to the toilet.’ Does prakruti feel hungry or You feel hungry?

Dadashri: No, everything will go in hunger pangs only, in the pain of the hunger only. Kabir Saheb says: ‘Bhookha lage tab kashu nahi sooze, gnan-dhyan sab rotimey, Kahat Kabira suno bhai sadhu aag lago ees pothimey.

One cannot see anything when he gets hungry, knowledge-meditation everything goes in the bread.

Oh sadhu! Listen to what Kabir has to say, the fire has ignited in this stomach.’

What will these ignorant people say at the end that the fire ignited in the stomach? It is not the fault of the stomach; it is the fault of the eater. It is a terrible ignorance to say that it is the fault of the stomach. One can say that way in the worldly interaction (vyavahar). It is the fault of the eater. What can the poor stomach do?

The one who knows the prakruti, is Purush One dances as the prakruti (mindspeech-body complex) makes him dance.

Awareness does not remain about what is harmful or hurtful to the self.

Who feels hungry? Who feels thirsty?

All this happens to prakruti. Who is asking for this jalebi (sweet and flavored golden rings fried to crispness)? Who is asking for tea?

Prakruti is asking for this.

Tasty or tasteless, is the effect of parmanu (indivisible particle of an atom).

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Questioner: Prakruti feels hungry.

Dadashri: And yet one says, ‘I became hungry’. There is no harm in saying this with worldly interaction view; there is no harm in speaking dramatically. But one speaks this way exactly, with that belief too within. One has no choice but to say it appears in the world, in the play of the world.

When one knows the Self, then Purush (the Self) and the prakruti (the relative self, the non-Self), become separate. Thereafter, prakruti will follow the role of prakruti and the Purush will follow the role of the Purush.

Difficulties of kramic path Until one makes all the senses (indriyas) nirahaari (the non-eater), one cannot do meditation (dhyan) in the kramic path (stepby-step path to Self-realization).

What do the followers of kramic path say? Without pratyahaar (withdrawing all the senses from their objects and make them steady in one place; self-restraint), one can never attain meditation, dhaarna (mental retention) and samadhi (the state in which no situation in the relative world affects the inner bliss), meditation will not happen at all. What does pratyahaar mean? All kinds of food intakes for the senses must come to a stop (nirahaari). Now how many from us can do such a thing? These people want to eat dahivada (fried daal cakes in spiced curds), February 2011

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batakavada (fried spicy potato balls), they want to see and do all this, and they want to go to moksha (final liberation) too. This is a science (vignan), and therefore, the two tasks of the knowing and doing are possible. Otherwise, it is not possible to continue these two tasks together. Therefore, one eats peacefully when food comes in front of him. We are saying that when you get a plate with dahivada then eat comfortably, because Atma (the Self) is the knower of this, the Self is not the eater.

This is very straightforward path. One does not have to do anything, and this path is nice. This is absolutely scientific. Nothing will sprout inside. Upon slightest dullness in awareness, it will start to sprout immediately.

Then it is useless to have just a little awareness.

The Self is the knower of the doer-sufferer The eater is eating and I, the non-eater simply am knowing him. Who is eating? The eater is eating, the non-eater knows. If he is eating very little alpahaari, would the Self (knower, potey) not know that? So would he not know all this? What he is eating, would he not know that?

Questioner: He would.

Dadashri: And he would know in his mind only that, that ‘I am eating’, he would feel thus. This is because as long as he is the doer-sufferer (karta-bhokta) there is the, ‘I am eating,’ and the moment bhoktapada (state of sufferer) left, he became the knower (gnata) of the doer-sufferer (karta-bhokta)! The one who does (doer, karta) suffers. Chandubhai does (through doership) and Chandubhai is the sufferer (bhokta); the Self becomes the knower (gnata) of this.

up eating more?

Questioner: In a way I eat more rice than necessary.

Dadashri: Is it Chandubhai who is over eating or You? What is this that just happened?

You believe yourself to be the eater. What do you believe?

Questioner: The eater (ahaari).

Dadashri: That is why you are being partial, no? Where is the need for the noneater (nirahaari) to be partial? The non-eater knows where this eater is becoming partial?

Why are you not speaking?

Questioner: That is right.

Dadashri: You say ‘right’ afterwards.

Instead, what is wrong in speaking from the beginning?

Questioner: Is it true that the prakruti prefers this more and is pulled towards it, prefers this other thing less. But should I speak clearly during this conversation?

Dadashri: It does not happen like that.

Because he is partial, he will not give the visa to speak, for fear of becoming exposed.

In the least you should say that the eater has a nature that is prone to over eat, and he eats rice in excess, and takes this other thing less. What is wrong in that?

Questioner: I can say. That is right.

Dadashri: What is a problem in speaking the truth? And you are speaking a lie. Is it not considered telling a lie?

Questioner: Yes. Dadashri: Yes, totally a lie.

One protects his side by the belief, that I am the eater

Questioner: As many wrong beliefs are there, all that became lie only, didn’t they?

At the time of eating, what do you end

Dadashri: These are not just beliefs;

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he behaves as that form.

Questioner: Yes. He will verily conduct himself as that, it is in conduct too.

Dadashri: He is saying that I am being partial. It is not a matter of belief.

What concern is it of the Knower?

Questioner: This talk that has come about, is very good. This talk that just happened about mistakes in conduct (vartana, vartan), about belief and conduct, is very subtle. The talk about partiality towards the eater- You said that the eater is partial, but the Self is not partial towards the eater (the self).

Dadashri: What concern the Self has in that? This is because the eater is eating food. ‘You-the Self’ are the knower of that!

‘What he ate, what he didn’t eat, food is heavy or light, does he eat more lemon or that other thing’, would You not know this? ‘He drinks even two to three cups of tea.’ How can the Self drink anything?

Questioner: So this means that the Self knows through that awareness that these two things are separate. So, the one who drinks this tea is verily this (file) only, and that is not Atma (the Self) at all.

Dadashri: The separation is there for sure, after ‘I’ gave the Gnan!

Know that the eater is eating Will he not have the awareness of who am I? Am I the eater (ahaari) or the noneater (nirahaari), when this awareness is not there, such a small (!) mistake will not happen.

How can it happen?

Questioner: This cannot be called a small mistake at all.

Dadashri: It may be big!

Questioner: Mistake means mistake, 6

where is the question of small or big? Today the talk came about, that ‘I end up eating more rice’. So what are all such mistakes, and how are they considered?

Dadashri: It is a language (bhasha).

But because of language he says, ‘I am Bhartruhari (the King in the drama).’ But why don’t you carry out the worldly interaction (vyavahar) of Bhartruhari? Then he would not do, how would he? It is just a language, and the echo of language; in fact, ‘I am not Bhartruhari.’

He says clearly that, ‘the eater is eating food.’ He says this clearly, but he speaks sentence. Alpahaari (the one who is eating minimal food), is eating less food (alpahaar).

He understands, yes, this talk is right, but hey you, try eating minimal food. So then You come to understand that he ate this and ate that.

Even as it is, when the neighbor is eating then You will be at ease (nirant), no?

Otherwise he will create a hassle. ‘I want to go to that restaurant, I want to do this.’ He will jump here and there. And once he ate, then?

Questioner: He will not shout after that.

Dadashri: Yes. Then, there is no trouble after that. Then he will let you do satsang if you want to. If he ate a little khichdee and this little vegetable then he will say, ‘Do satsang the whole night’. See, is he not a very good person? Is he better than these relatives?

Questioner: Yes. Difference between wholesale and retail Dadashri: Yes, once in a while worryexternally induced difficulty- suffocation will happen but it will not do like the loved ones and relatives would do, because there is wholesale of the loved ones and relatives and February 2011

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this is called retail. Yes, that means wholesale; they say bales and bales, don’t they?

part knows the taster of the food? Does it know which taste arose?

Questioner: What is that? Wholesale?

What are you trying to say?

Dadashri: The Self knows whether the taste is sweet or bitter, sour or bland. Its job verily is to know.

Dadashri: Is there not a difference between retail and wholesale? Retail means they will let us go with a bag full. And wholesale means how can we carry a whole gunny bag?

Questioner: Wholesale for which matter?

Dadashri: In all matters, it is wholesale only. We have to go because we don’t have any choice. If we get hungry then don’t we have to go to the restaurant or fast food place, even if we don’t like?

Questioner: We have to find some way.

Dadashri: We have to find a way, don’t we? Now we see the fritters were fried with the spilled sweat even then we have to eat due to hunger, don’t we? You will eat, even you have seen the sweat drop in the frying pan, will you not?

Questioner: It is the job of the Self?

Dadashri: Yes. It knows things whether the kadhee has turned out good or bad, but it does not give any opinion that it is good or bad. It knows without any opinion.

Questioner: Is it the Self or the buddhi (intellect) that knows whether the cashew nuts are salty or spicy?

Dadashri: The intellect knows that. The Self also knows the knower. The Self knows what the intellect knows.

Questioner: Because even an agnani (not Self-realized) knows whether they are salty or spicy.

Dadashri: Or will one remain hungry?

Dadashri: It is the intellect that knows that. For a Gnani (Self-realized), He also knows what the intellect knows. ‘He’ knows what even the sense organs (indriyas) know.

He knows what the senses tasted. He can see (know) all the different tastes.

Questioner: No, he will eat because of the hunger.

The function of mind-chit at the time of eating

Dadashri: There is no choice at all.

And if you do not feed the neighbor (the self) then ‘You’ will get into trouble. Therefore, You have to tell him, ‘eat comfortably, it is good, there is no problem.’ Does sweat drop in everything? You have to feed him some way or another.

Questioner: How does the chit, the mind etc., work? When food is placed on the tongue, what is the function of the mind thereafter?

Questioner: That is because we don’t have a choice.

Who is the knower of the taste?

Questioner: When the food is eaten, which part in the antahkaran knows all the phases of the different tastes of food, which February 2011

Dadashri: The mind will think, ‘overall the food tastes good. It is sweet.’

Questioner: You said that the mind analyzes everything and then presents it, so then what is the function of the chit?

Dadashri: The chit has nothing to do with it.

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Questioner: Why? The chit does not have concern with what was just eaten?

Sleeping at the time of doership; awakened at the time of suffering

Dadashri: The only thing the chit does is that it latches on to good taste or bad taste.

If the taste is good, it will become stuck there; the chit will get attracted there and lingers there (najar laagi). The chit casts the lingering hook (najar), not the mind.

Questioner: You talked about becoming a bhokta (sufferer), so then at the time of eating would one not become engrossed (tanmayakar)?

Questioner: You say that the chit should be present while eating food; then what is the function of the chit during eating?

Dadashri: To see what kind of tastes there are in food? What tastes good?

Questioner: Is it not the function of the intellect to know about taste?

Dadashri: It is a collective function. All the work is in partnership. Whatever it latches on to; if the taste is good, it gets stuck to it.

Then it will come in the dream too.

No pleasure for the one in a hurry Now what happens in the ignorant state is that, one tastes it, that is all. Otherwise he will not suffer (bhogavey) the pleasure of anything. One feels that these laddus (sweet balls) are sweet, then say they are ‘nice’, ‘excellent’, that is all. Poor fellow will not ‘see’ what the taste is, because he is harried and hurried (raghavaat) all day long.

Now many people would just put a chunk in a mouth and swallow it. They will not taste completely. Now if they force then the whole laddu will be engulfed in three pieces.

One will just feel the sweetness that is all.

Only that much can happen. In a way they will not know the sweetness or the taste.

Now tell me, what pleasure is there in a harried and hurried life? Can a stressed and hassled person enjoy any pleasure (sukha)?

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Dadashri: Yes, the one who becomes the doer (karta) will not refrain from becoming the sufferer (bhokta), will he? When we had become the doer (karta) (in the past life) at that time we didn’t know that we will attain Gnan (in this life).

Questioner: Yes, that design was different at that time.

Dadashri: And he didn’t know that he will become the sufferer (bhokta). Now when one becomes the sufferer (bhokta), at that time he says, ‘such thing happens to me.’ Oh mooah (Dadashri’s expression to awaken the ignorant one), but you became karta that is verily why this happens.

Questioner: So I simply have to know that only.

Dadashri: You have to know.

Questioner: That’s all, that is over, there is no problem for that.

Dadashri: No. Questioner: Dada, it remains like that in the beginning. Gnata (the knower) will remain separate, but when it goes on a little more then it starts getting into bhoktapanu (state of sufferer).

Dadashri: Most of the time goes in suffering (bhoktapanu) only, because when he became a doer (karta), at that time he didn’t have Gnan. And he became a sufferer (bhokta) and then he has attained Gnan. Gnan arose in the middle. And then he will scream February 2011

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that ‘I don’t want to become a sufferer (bhokta) and still I become that.’

But when you became a doer at that time you didn’t have Gnan. If You had this Gnan on that day then You wouldn’t have become a doer at all. And You would not become a bhokta. Therefore, one will not have all this awareness that on what basis it happens like this. Everybody would not have awareness, some may have it, and some may not have it.

Does awareness remain for you?

Purushartha of the Knower state Questioner: When I start eating food, at that time I feel that the eater is eating, I am the non-eater, but during the eating process there is no awareness. Sometimes the awareness that ‘I am Shuddhatma’ may come.

Then he will eat again, but the awareness comes again, otherwise it gets suppressed completely.

Dadashri: Now you would eat comfortably. But compared to when you were eating before and eating now, there is difference that ‘the eater is eating food, I am not doing it’. It will remain in his awareness that ‘I am not eating this food’. Before, ‘I am verily eating’ that is what he used to say. The wedge has entered through this Gnan. So that much benefit has happened.

Questioner: Continuous constant awareness does not remain that I have to continue seeing this only. Thereafter he would get involved in eating, but in the middle little like this will come in awareness.

Dadashri: I said, just now, in short, that when you were the doer, on that day you didn’t have Gnan.

Questioner: And when I became a bhokta then I attained Gnan. If we do little purushartha (being the Self through the Agnas February 2011

of the Gnani Purush) and if we make a decision (nischaya) then we can remain much better in this whole process, is that right?

Dadashri: So at least do purushartha.

After becoming a Purush, at least a little purushartha can happen. If you do certain degree of purushartha then will the fruit of purushartha go away?

Questioner: We definitely can get it.

Dadashri: That too, only that the noneater would know that the ganthia (fries of chickpea flour, spiced) were not good. I said that, ‘The eater is eating. Alpahaari is eating less’, didn’t I say? ‘Ganthia were not good’ will one not know that? One can know everything. Even the one who does alpahaar (minimal food intake) would know that chevado (rice-puffs, split gram, spices, cashews, raisins, nuts-all fried crisp, used as snack) has become stale. So then who knows that it has become stale? He will eat for sure.

The eater will not have any awareness; the knower has the knowledge and the awareness of it all. And this one (the one who has not taken Gnan) says ‘I verily ate and I verily knew’.

The knower and the sufferer are separate The nature of the world is ingrained with inner pull (khench) only. Getting involved within is the inner pull. Nothing will happen to the ‘seer’ (jonaar). The taster (chakhanaar) will taste and the ‘seer’ will see. The eater that is eating whatever, in this body, is part of so many accounts that are ongoing! There is the one who tastes initially, there is the one who savors the taste, and there is the one who experiences! How many divisions are there, no? The chewer will chew, the one with the saliva will add saliva, enjoyer of the taste will enjoy the taste (swad) and then again there 9

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is one agency. And then the knower will know, ‘really what was the taste or what was not’!

The one enjoying the taste will enjoy, he will not know, he will become engrossed, he will continue to suck. That is separate. The one enjoying (suffering) the taste is separate. The knower is separate. Everything is separate.

That is why even though very little food is to be eaten, it takes half an hour for ‘us—the Gnani Purush’ to eat! What is the reason for that? We have to see the account all the way until the state of ‘knowing’, ‘how is it, how is it not.’

Questioner: Dada, who is the boss of all this?

Dadashri: Boss is the one who sucks the taste (vedak, sufferer). The eater is eating, the non-eater knows.

Questioner: Who is the knower?

Dadashri: That is verily this pragnya shakti (liberating energy of the Self). It knows that ‘it was like this’. And until one has not attained Gnan, intellect knows that ‘it is like this, like that’ and after Gnan, pragnya knows.

‘The eater is eating food, and I the non-eater only know that.’

So the feeling of hunger is more or less, it has started burning inside, ‘I (the Self)’ am the ‘knower’ of that. Our science says so.

How much liberation it grants us? It gives liberation in every matter.

What the knower would know?

Questioner: Dada, it happens to me that if some item is very tasty then I feel like eating it more. I end up overeating.

Dadashri: The eater, the taster, the sufferer (vedanaar), and then the knower. It is in four ways like this. The Self would continue to know. Vedanaar suffers, the taster 10

ego will do egoism, that ‘it is nice’, together with intellect. Then the vedanaar (bhogavey) will suffer minimally and the Self would know.

At the time of eating, ‘we – the Gnani and the absolute Self’ eat little quantity but it takes a long time, because we eat everything by knowing, staying in the state of the Self. The sufferer-enjoyer of pleasure (here) bhogavanar will suffer (bhogavey) it, and the knower will know; we eat that way.

Questioner: What does this ‘knower’ know?

Dadashri: How is this taste, how is it not, how is this food?

Questioner: Does He only know? Does He not become engrossed in it?

Dadashri: He will know only. The ‘knower’ does not have anything else. He would not have bondage at all. The vedanaar (the sufferer) will vedey, bhogavey (suffer).

Questioner: So Dada, the one who is the vedanaar, that which is written that atma (the self) is a vedak, the property of vedakata (suffering) is mentioned, so it is the mishrachetan (mixture of the Self and the nonSelf), isn’t it?

Dadashri: It is in the worldly interaction.

It is the one verily in vyavahar (worldly interaction), whether you say mishrachetan or power chetan.

Questioner: He is the sufferer (vedanaaro), but is the original Atma (the Self) verily the gnayak (the knower)?

Dadashri: He is the ‘knower’. That which remains the ‘knower’ in every situation is the Self.

Questioner: The taster is the ego (ahamkar).

Dadashri: Ego, with the intellect.

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Questioner: Ego with the intellect and then how about the eater?

Dadashri: The eater, how can he eat?

Questioner: Pudgal (the non-Self complex) eats.

Dadashri: The sensory organs (indriyas) do the eating.

Questioner: The sensory organs do the eating.

Dadashri: They will eat rotlo (thick bread)! The body will eat. This body will not know at all, what it ate. Ginger was added or not added inside, it would not know anything all that. Fenugreek seeds were added in lentil soup or not, it would not know anything. The one that does not know is the eater and the one who knows is the taster. Are there fenugreek seeds in the lentil soup or not? Thus the one who suffers (bhogavey) is the vedak (sufferer).

Questioner: The one who suffers (vedey), there is ego in that too, is there not?

Dadashri: Yes, but the ego of suffering (vedak bhaav).

Questioner: But the ego of suffering (vedak bhaav) and the gnayak (the knower) who knows, is that the pure Soul (Shuddhatma)?

Dadashri: The sufferer (vedak) is the one who suffers (vedey). Now the taster and the sufferer (vedak) would be together.

Questioner: The taster (chakhanaar) and this sufferer (vedak)?

Dadashri: The taster tasted and if the train is ready to leave then it will remain in the mind of that sufferer (vedak) that it was good but I didn’t eat, and that is the tuber of the sufferer. The taster tasted that it was tasty but February 2011

he didn’t get to eat. Ghaari (very rich flakes of donut like delicacy) was nice but he didn’t eat. When he tasted it, he liked it; now if there was a vedak (the sufferer), then he would gulp it down fast (train leaving), that is called a vedak.

Questioner: When all are eating together, sharing the same plate, the hand tends to grab more.

Dadashri: Vedak will chew fast, it will continue to gulp down. And if there is the knower then it would take very long time to eat. We take fifteen minutes, twenty minutes or even half an hour. But, within half an hour ‘our’ chit or mind or anything will not wander out even for one second. The taster will taste the exact taste at one place only. The food is eaten with complete taste. That which is not helpful to the body will be left aside. There is no hassle or conflict of any kind. I do not talk while eating. More food was eaten because we talked today.

Questioner: You talked therefore you ended up eating more?

Dadashri: Yes, because knowing did not happen, suffering did not happen, only the work of the taster happened.

Questioner: Taster is the ego, Dada, isn’t it? The one who tastes, it is the ego, isn’t it?

Dadashri: All are the forms of ego only.

But, at that time it will be considered like this.

‘At least taste’ says the taster. He will taste milk, a half a cup. It takes so long for me to drink. I am talking, but if I don’t talk even then how long it takes for me to drink!

The eater, the sufferer and the knower The eater is separate, the feeder is separate, the chewer is separate, the vedak 11

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(the one suffering) is separate; ‘You-the Self’ are the ‘knower’ are separate…

Questioner: Who are all those? Who is the eater?

that state of the gnata (knower) in knowing and the one who remains in vedakata. Who is that?

Questioner: This Gnani.

Dadashri: Yes, Gnani.

Dadashri: Can this table eat?

Questioner: No. Dadashri: The one who eats will eat.

That eater is separate from all these, ‘You’ are not that too. The eater is separate from You. Then the feeder is separate. And the hand will do the feeding. We do not have concern with other outsiders. The external feeders in fact, come under the ‘seeing’. In a way hand does the feeding. The eater and then the feeder, all done?

Questioner: Yes. Dadashri: Then the chewers are separate, so the thirty-two teeth will chew.

Then there is the sufferer Bavaji within vedanaara. If something sweet arrives then he will enjoy. When the bitter comes then he suffers (vedey), he will suffer (vedey) adversely. He will suffer (vedey), will he not?

When the bitter comes he cannot tolerate and when the sweet comes then it is like that.

Therefore, it is called suffering (vedakata).

The sufferer (vedanaaro) of bitter-sweet. The knower is the one who knows how the sufferer (vedanaaro) suffers (vedey). The knower is ‘I’, ‘the Self’. That is who I am, the Gnani with the vedakata (suffering).

Questioner: Gnani? You just said he is a ‘bavo’ with the vedakata?

Dadashri: As long as there is that ‘bavo’ there is the suffering (vedakata). As long as the Gnani is with ‘bavo’, there is the sufferer state (vedakata). And the knower is the muda Purush (original Self), kevalgnan swaroop (absolute Self state). We remain in 12

The one who knows is the Self; the one who suffers (vedey), is ‘bavo’ and the one who eats, is Mangaldas.

‘I’ the knower, know that this mathiyu (crisp uniquely spicy wafer thin deep fried snack, orange gold in color made of lentil flour) was eaten, what kind of taste arose. The one who knows this is the Self, and the one who suffers (bhogavey) this is ego (ahamkar), the ‘bavo’; so all these are separate. It is necessary for the Self to remain separate, and in fact is indeed separate!

Questioner: The effect (asar) of hunger that happens, who experiences that? Is it experienced by Mangaldas or the bavo (ego)?

Dadashri: There is no familiarity of hunger or anything in Mangaldas at all. Only bavo would know everything. Mangaldas does not have any knowledge at all. Say for instance, if there is an engine, and if oil in it is finished, then will the engine know?

Questioner: It will not know; that is right.

Dadashri: After knowing the Self, when Mangaldas is eating ‘You’ should say, ‘eat brother, eat slowly, and in a manner in which you will not have any stomach disturbances.’

Then Mangaldas (the physical mind body complex) also will become happy. He is a very good person! Why starve and trouble Mangaldas at all?

Both function in separation The knower will know everything and the doer will do. The business of both of these February 2011

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is carried out together and simultaneously. The drinker of tea will drink tea and the knower will know how the tea was, simultaneously! It was strong or sweet, so the knower must be present at that time.

Dadashri: Similarly, there is the sufferer (vedanaar) again at the time of taking bitter medicine. He will make a face, close his eyes and drink that medicine. What will he do if he has to drink bitter medicine?

Questioner: This knower will be there for sure, Dadaji. This is because He is totally separate for sure.

Questioner: That face will become like that only, Dada.

Dadashri: Do you understand about the doer and the knower? His knowledge is with raag-dwesh (attachment-abhorrence) and this one is vitarag (absolutely free from attachment-abhorrence). He also has the knowledge too, the doer also has the knowledge but with raag-dwesh. The drinker of tea drinks tea, so does he not know that?

Questioner: He knows.

Dadashri: But it is with raag-dwesh.

Then he falls on its attributes, whether it is without sugar or sweet.

Questioner: Therefore the one who does anything, is separate.

Dadashri: ‘He – the non-Self’ is separate and often times ‘we’ do not like it either. ‘We-the Self’ are separate from him (the non-Self), even through opinion too.

Dadashri: We say to him, ‘at least taste a little bit.’ I would know from the moment the aroma arises from the entrance of the house. He will do like that even when he drinks heemaj (smaller variety of myrobalan, Ayurvedic mixtures). Forget about bitter but he will do like that even when he drinks heemaj. One has not kept the space to form the prakruti (the balance in three proportions of the non-Self complex). The food meant for intake should have had the constituents of six tastes (ras) however these taste-induced juices (salty, sweet, bitter, sour, hot and astringent taste induced internal natural juice flow) are not being taken by people. Are people taking in these taste-juices?

Which juice-taste (ras) did I say?

Questioner: You said meal made with six juice-taste inductions.

What is the tendency of the eater?

Dadashri: Bitter and others and that other seasoned juice-taste.

All these people will eat up the whole dish of ice cream; they will not leave at all.

Questioner: Seasoned juice-taste, means how does it taste?

Questioner: They will eat the whole dish, very fast.

Dadashri: Astringent (turo), closer to astringent. Astringent is included in that.

Astringent juice makes space in the body, it creates (extension) scope. If there is no scopespace, then astringent juice will create scope.

Dadashri: One spoon has not been swallowed yet, and he will shove another one in the mouth. The sufferer (vedanaar) is there; he is in the state of suffering (vedak).

Questioner: He cannot afford if ice cream dissolves outside, it is all right if it dissolves inside.

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Questioner: So it will create a space so that it will throw out that other impurities on the side.

Dadashri: It will remove out side.

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Questioner: It throws outside so there is a space.

Dadashri: This creates space, so our people should know the one who creates the space.

Whose fault is it in the unfolding of karma?

This one is only the happy person. This Chandubhai—Ambalal says, “‘You’ have to go deep. I will go ahead and eat.”

Bitter and astringent, one does not take in these two juice-tastes; and that is the reason for all these problems. But again, it is not going to work just by knowing this.

Questioner: Then what should I do?

Dadashri: Previous karma will obstruct in the process, will it not? Yes, if previous karma did not come and obstruct then what was known, would have been successful. Therefore, You have to say (converse with the self). Now the sufferer within (the Gnani) vedanaar will say, ‘The fault is not of this ganthia, it is the fault of this tongue. This tongue is not proper. We know that this is not the fault of kadhee (hot spicy soup with buttermilk, and chickpea flour), this is the fault of the tongue. So we would declare that ‘this is the fault of the tongue.’ Some people have a spoilt tongue, so they will say, ‘You have spoilt the kadhee.’ Hey you! Your tongue is crooked!

Alas, how is going to have this relative awareness (bhaan)? No one will say, ‘this is the fault of the tongue,’ it will not even come in awareness. I would say to this lady that it is the fault of this tongue, your food item is good.

What would I say? I would say that it is the fault of the tongue, and not her fault. It is the fault of my tongue, I was saying like 14

that, wasn’t I? Questioner: That was not suitable inside, other thing was not suitable. I tried to keep changing everything, so it is the fault of the tongue only, is that so?

Dadashri: It is the fault of the tongue.

In that, ‘we’ would know, whose fault it is.

Questioner: The fault of the tongue, is that an effect of karma from past life (purvakarma)?

Dadashri: The fault is of the tongue!

The tongue was spoiled because of unfolding of karma. So the good thing will look (taste or appear) bad.

Questioner: After this Gnan, how long can one allow the intake of ice cream?

Dadashri: At the time of eating, if the eater and the knower remain separate then it can be allowed until the end. And if the eater and the knower become one then it should not be allowed.

Questioner: In that case it is not allowed in by anyway.

Dadashri: Yes, otherwise how can wethe awakened Ones, let it in? One will pile it in, with the intense hunger! There is a scientific method for that, if one eats according to that method, then there is no problem.

Questioner: Dada, ours is Akram Vignan that is why we can actually let go of it?

Dadashri: That is verily why we can let go. Other places, out there it will not work at all. It will not work in kramic. In kramic path, no ice cream-sweet, nothing at all, you cannot touch sweet at all. If you get tasty food in your plate, food that you like then you should give it to other person, and you have to eat what you don’t like, if you want to go to moksha.

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Where does the mistake happen in the matter of eating?

When the mind asks for ice cream then that is what it wants; that does not harm the siddhant (the incontrovertible principle that accomplishes the ultimate goal) of brahmacharya (absolute freedom from sexual impulses in mind, speech and body) too much.

Go ahead and give it some ice cream, but not too much. Do not discourage it. You can even give it two dishes. How many dishes do you need?

Questioner: I eat as many as I like but I do not have a desire of eating more. If it comes then ‘he’ will eat.

Dadashri: That is a race course.

Questioner: But if it comes then ‘he will eat’ means he will eat only when he has a desire, no? Is it going to go in on its own?

When the stomach gets full then it stops. But if it comes in front and if someone insists, then ‘he’ will take it.

Dadashri: Yes, ‘it will come in front’!

Praapt ne bhogavey - Suffer that which has arisen in front (Sutra of Gnani Purush Dadashri), one has become like that (!) No other problem. If rotlo (thick bread) comes then so be it and if ghee (purified butter) comes then so be it.

Questioner: No, but Dada, he ate ten and then if eleventh (dish) comes in front, then what should he do?

Dadashri: He suffers (bhogavey) what comes in front of him, that aspect is right, but everything else where it slips, are all his mistakes only. The mind that wants to take it again and again; all that is verily the mistake.

You should always take its dose, whatever dose is considered in worldly interaction, otherwise would it not be offered from the February 2011

beginning? Then one will say, ‘No, we cannot give that.’ Whatever dose is decided in worldly interaction, that should be taken, that’s all. You do not have bondage in that, but thereafter if you take again, then you slip. If one takes three bowls of milk and keeps on taking this and that, that means he slipped. I had seen that he does not have desire the first time.

May it be a rotlo or whatever, first time it is not bondage, but second time is bondage, it is harmful. Greed (lobha) entered at that moment.

Questioner: If we have gone at someone’s home for satsang and they serve one-one dish ice cream to all, then all will take it. Thereafter, again someone comes and asks that now serve the second dish to all and they serve second dish to everybody…

Dadashri: That is not a problem. Our inner hook (dankha) should not be in that.

But here we would have the inner hook. For that person I am noticing in worldly interaction, in a way he does not have desire in the beginning but after this comes together, he would have the inner hook. We should not have inner hook-tendency. Do you have such dankha?

Questioner: Very heavy.

Dadashri: Yes, but You should continue to ‘see’ that inner hook-tendency too. By doing that, it will decrease. People cannot know even about this dankha, can they?

Questioner: They cannot.

Dadashri: Did you understand all this, and that later the greed happens? He loved the taste, so he will take again otherwise, generally he does not take. He does not remember the taste. So he does not feel that, that ‘I want this’ when it is not there.

Beware where titillation happens Questioner: After eating one dish if 15

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someone insists and gives another dish and if I refuse it, then is it considered interference in that which arose spontaneously?

Dadashri: No, there is no problem if they offer with insistence. You do not have any problem if they give another dish at all.

But catch the account of your titillation (galipachi).

Questioner: Now I will mark, that Dadaji has said to watch out and check if there is the titillation for the next dish.

Dadashri: It happens to him, I had seen that.

Questioner: Then it is right.

Dadashri: It happens to you, I had seen that too. He too was sitting for dinner with me, so I had seen everything in the two of you. I would notice for sure. It would be in my awareness. You did not have desire at first that you want to have such thing. Whatever comes, so be it. You are right up to that point.

But afterwards whatever that…

Questioner: Afterwards, the inner thing happens.

Dadashri: That does not happen for ‘us’. No matter what it is. No matter what you do, not anything extra. There is no problem if ‘he-the eater’ takes more food. Food is the support of our body. If it is good and if you ate more then there is no problem. If you eat rotlo-lentil (daal)-rice-kadhee more, there is no problem. If it is tasty and you eat more then also there is no problem. But there is a problem of eating these ornamental (fancy) items. Ice cream etc., are fancy-ornamental items.

would be involved in the ornamental things only, would it not?

It will make awareness dim When one eats ice cream, it harms that much too. How much benefit will you have if you drink hot water? That much harm happens in eating ice cream. Even then our people eat ice cream comfortably, don’t they? And if they get four dishes of ice cream then they will finish them off, fast. Hey You! How can this be after attaining the Self? It makes the awareness (jagruti) dim. Awareness becomes dim by drinking cold drinks and all that.

Brain becomes dull by eating this ice cream, cold air (air conditioning), all these.

Ice and everything makes one dull. Therefore, stay away from this. You should tolerate heat, you should choose heat.

Questioner: We should choose heat?

Dadashri: Yes, because then only the awareness will start to increase, otherwise awareness will become dim. If you eat ice cream, if you eat ice then awareness will become dim. As long as you believe that ice cream is beneficial, harm will continue. If cold air is believed to be beneficial then that will harm, if hot air is believed to be harmful then too it will lead to harm. You should prefer and pick warm air. We enjoy if this car is heated, because we have preferred and picked that.

Questioner: So Dada, we think that it would be better if we have a cool air conditioned car for Dada.

Questioner: There is a problem with ornamental items.

Dadashri: No, no, no, no. I don’t like air conditioning at all! I am the opponent of that. All this would start to become dull. This cold thing makes everything dull (jada) and hot things energize everything.

Dadashri: Ornamental. But the mind

When we know the fact, it will stop by

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itself. By knowing and understanding well, what is beneficial, what is harmful, the self definitely gains. We do not have to change anything. We should settle whatever it is. And if one does not have this Gnan (Self-realization) then it is better to take a vow or follow some discipline. Those who have Gnan, they do not need anything. They should stay close to Gnani Purush in satsang. With that, the self (atma) will cool down day by day.

Awareness of the Gnani at the time of eating It is not worth getting into-doing the slightest moha (illusory attachment). The moha which happens, should feel as if it has to be ‘done’ without any recourse. Do you know that for many years I have been eating against my will?

It is just that when you serve, I eat a little, so it will not look bad that I am wasting everything. But that, I would be taking against my will and the day when the snack comes a little stale then I would say, ‘very good thing happened today.’ So instead of taking more, this much less is taken in.

‘petrol (petroleum-crude gasoline) is finished then I like to eat. Now if there is still this much ‘petrol’ (food energy) inside, they ask me to eat. So every time I like to eat after the hunger arises. But often times I have to do such thing. So many times I eat very less even then many times…

Questioner: You do not feel hungry.

Dadashri: No. So the hunger should arise at the exact time. This has been the special habit.

When ‘we’ were doing business, on those days ‘we’ were eating at ease at fivethirty. And there was no problem. Hunger did not happen to rise at night either. This is just that I ate in time in the evening, but even then with the concern that, will it digest or not?

Questioner: Should one not take care from the worldly interaction perspective if this is harmful for the self?

Dadashri: We should instantly keep in our attentive mind (dhyan) that I will be able to take only this much food. Before I used to take one rotli and this much rice. At this time we stopped rotli but now I have to take one rotli and this much rice, in that if some person says that I have brought this much food, and this much of this, and when she comes to serve, then I would remove either rotli or rice or vegetable.

What is the religion (dharma), nature of the physical body is that it will continue eating if the food is good. However, I have (at meal times) certain restrictions. In one plate, there should be twenty tola (one tolo = 11.66 gm), including vegetables and everything else. If someone brings one tolo chutney (taste enhancer mixed sauces, crushed, red or green), then I have to take one tolo of other thing (food item) out. If one tolo rotli (thin flat bread) is excess then I have to take out the other. It should not exceed 20 tola. Such is my discipline. Even at this age I should feel hungry at four o’clock.

If someone leaves half a rotli extra in my plate then I would remove vegetable of that equivalent weight, or I would remove daal (lentil soup), or kadhee, but I have never eaten more than the (fixed) proportion, even one scheduled time. Now if you ask me to eat again at your home, if I have come here after eating, even then I can eat one laddu (sweet ball) nicely.

My nature is such that when all the

Questioner: Dada, you know about

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your proportion (pramaan; quantity level) but we would not know what our proportion is at the time of eating.

Dadashri: Therefore, I do plus-minus.

If someone left something extra then I would not say no to her, I would not be disrespectful to her. And I would deduct that other food item, if I want to remain aware! ‘We’ remain awake during the whole night.

Questioner: Dada, mathiya came after you finished dinner, so how did you balance that?

Dadashri: I eat so little that I can eat if I want to eat, again.

within for you and if it is possible to eat then why do you not eat until the stomach is full?

Dadashri: Then what difference remains between ‘us’ and a water buffalo? A water buffalo eats all that comes in front of it.

Questioner: But if you take a little more then your health will remain better.

Dadashri: But then one becomes like a water buffalo.

Questioner: What happens to me is that I end up eating less, I feel like there is still some space in my stomach. And then trouble arises.

What does the principle say? Eat a hot snack; don’t eat a cold one. But despite this I feed ‘him-the eater’ two mathiyas (crisp savory thin fried wafer snack). If the mind says it wants five; then ‘we’ say ‘later, not now. After this Diwali’; I will even say that much.

Dadashri: You have to make solution for that too. If you eat by chewing and chewing then whatever amount you are eating now, eat three-fourth portion of that by chewing, then with that much only the stomach will be satisfied. And you will derive the taste of that too. This is without taste, like the buffalo is eating a haystack, grass!

Questioner: No, so you had not kept the space for mathiya from the beginning, did you?

Questioner: Yes, it will be possible to eat by chewing.

Dadashri: I had kept space enough if I want to eat again. Some person says, ‘Please, can you sit again? No, you must take.’ If someone asks me to eat second time, then that much space we would have kept. That is why I say many times that ‘hunger is burning within’. Otherwise will he speak?

Questioner: No, he will not speak.

Dadashri: If he filled up the stomach to the full, then will he say, ‘hunger is burning within?’

Questioner: No, he would not speak.

Right way of eating Questioner: Dada, if hunger is burning 18

Dadashri: Then why are you not eating by prolonged chewing?

Questioner: I will eat from now on.

Dadashri: We have to eat all things in certain proportion. I have eaten only this much khichdee (dish made from the mixture of rice and lentil), that too by chewing a lot!

Questioner: Yesterday, the last portion of rice was left, and you made two portions from that.

Dadashri: I had made two portions, so I can eat by chewing and again with awareness of precise separation (joodoo-joodoo).

Questioner: This much cooked green chick peas were there. You ate four-five times February 2011

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by chewing and we would finish them in just one spoon.

Dadashri: Starve it to death, do not let it touch food at all.

Who is in control in the matter of eating?

Questioner: It will be the stomach which will remain hungry, will the mind remain hungry?

Who will remain hungry in that?

Questioner: My mind would show verily this that that much is not enough to fill the stomach.

Dadashri: Whoever may that be!

Dadashri: Mind will show all kinds of things.

Questioner: This body will remain, will it not?

Questioner: So what kind of adjustment should be taken there?

Dadashri: But do you have authoritycontrol (chalan) in Your home or not? Not even a little!

Dadashri: We let it starve to death, so then the mind will say, ‘If it is less even then it will be all right. Can you give a little, it will say. Give a little!’ Then it will beg for food. So then the authority-control will be yours.

Questioner: Mind goes against the control.

Questioner: In this matter of eating, is this the ultimate kind of awareness?

Dadashri: Just say that your control is not there!

Dadashri: You do not have control, and you are screaming for no reason. It is better that you have not got married yet. After marriage you will not have control over the one who will you be married with too, not even in the house. And you do not have control even in this body. Should we not have authority? What do you think?

Questioner: Of course! I do have any control- authority.

Dadashri: Oh, here comes the one with an authority! How would you have any control?

Questioner: But it goes against me, I admit that.

Dadashri: You do not have control whatsoever, do you?

Questioner: So from the time immemorial mind has formed a habit.

Dadashri: Why keep going around?

Why you are not saying that, you do not have control?

Questioner: How can the authoritycontrol (chalan) come?

Dadashri: Authority comes, when You keep it (mind) under control.

Questioner: What should I do to keep it under control?

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Questioner: We should, but when I sit to eat, I eat until the stomach is full.

Dadashri: That happens because there is no chalan (authority-control). Even when this much food item comes extra in our plate, ‘we’ take out other thing-food item. I took even this buttermilk, I took two spoons. Is the buttermilk going to bite inside?

Questioner: What will be the problem with buttermilk?

Dadashri: It will add more poison than all those other items, so it will take control over the whole night! If it is in excess then it will take over control. But if ‘we’ let it add in excess, then only, no?

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Questioner: This mind would be saying anything inside, and I can see that. It will say, ‘Often times I may or may not get breakfast in the morning.’ Again it will say, ‘If I eat less then my weight is not proper so I should eat.

And sometimes if I didn’t get to eat food on one scheduled time or if I got late then there would be trouble inside. The whole lamp will become dim.’ So it will show all such things.

And then if some food item comes in front then he will eat until the stomach is filled and satisfied.

Dadashri: Yes, but should we have our control or not?

Questioner: We should.

Dadashri: Or should you defecate right there in the conference where you have gone to listen?

Questioner: No, that cannot be done.

Dadashri: Should you relieve your bowels right when the mind sends the signals, regardless of where you are? Should we not have our control? If you had to empty your bladder, then should you do right there only?

Would you tell everybody that, ‘Excuse me brother, I would like to go to the bathroom?’

Questioner: It remains straightforward there. It does not remain straightforward where there is loophole for insincerity.

Dadashri: There you keep it in control, then why don’t you keep it in control here?

Questioner: There I have that fear, the fear of insult that people will notice.

Dadashri: But there is a lot more insult in this. You do not have authority, is it just an ordinary insult?

Questioner: Here there is nobody to scold us.

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Dadashri: Oh! They are scolding a lot, but you are not able to listen at all. You do not have control of your home (your world of this one self). Why do you keep wandering uselessly? They keep pestering; even then you are not able to listen.

Take over your control Did you ever not hear that? You do have control, don’t you?

Questioner: I should not listen to that mind. But once in a while it happens. He follows some times according to the mind only.

Dadashri: He follows sometime only, not everyday, does he?

Questioner: In a way, not everyday.

Dadashri: For this person, it is everyday, once in a while it is all right.

Questioner: But it happens like that only in the matter of eating.

Dadashri: This one does not have authority in the home (self) at all.

Questioner: That must be a weakness.

How did that weakness arise? There is no control; from where did that weakness arise?

Dadashri: Ask him only, will You? He does not have control then where did the weakness arise from?

Still take over the control. Wherever there is no control, start to exert your authority.

Then You will be able to become independent, otherwise you will not. Other people have control and you do not have control, how is it possible?

Questioner: I definitely want to create control.

Dadashri: Then make it starve.

Thereafter, slowly the mind will say, ‘Give at February 2011

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least some for the sake of living.’ Then you say, ‘Yes, wait.’ It will say, ‘Four pooris (fried bread)’. Then you say, ‘No, only one.’ Then it will say, ‘No, no, give me three, give me three.’ After then you can feed it three.

Questioner: This happened in the matter of food, did this not?

Dadashri: Then for which other matter do you want?

Questioner: Other matter, many others remain.

Dadashri: Once it settled in the matter of food, once it came under the control here, it will be under the control everywhere. Mind’s control is gone then there is no problem. If your control begins on the mind then there is no problem. Then some day you will let the mind have some self importance (rof) and say, ‘I will feed you just for today.’

Questioner: I don’t understand exactly how much food should I take?

Dadashri: You keep singing your own song for no reason. Just see that Your control is there.

Take food in accordance with the resolution Questioner: Our control means this.

‘He’ will decide that ‘I want to take this much (food) today!’ He will take according to that only, not more than that! Now by which account and how to decide that I want to take this much only?

Dadashri: You do say, don’t you, that you realize at the time of going to bed at night, that you ended up overeating.

Questioner: That I know at the end. I do not know that at the time of eating.

Dadashri: Yes, but you do know the February 2011

next day, don’t you? That yesterday this had happened, therefore remove three pooris out of seven today. Does it follow you or do you follow the dictates of the mind?

Questioner: For me too, ‘he-the eater’ takes food as the mind dictates.

Dadashri: Is that so? Then it is good for you! Your salvation is done for sure then (!), no?

Questioner: But now, sometimes I starve the mind and tell it, ‘you will not get anything to eat today.’

Dadashri: Yes, that is right. Then only it will remain in control!

Questioner: We don’t know such experiments. We feel that these are gross experiments. Renouncing food, to eat less, one should not follow as per mind’s dictate, we feel that all these experiments are gross-obvious (sthool).

Dadashri: But, where do you do such things?

Questioner: Now that you said, I understood the importance that ‘this mind can be completely subdued with this.’ When ‘my’ authority arises then the mind gets subdued.

Dadashri: Right now it is only the chalan (authority-control) of the mind for sure.

When the chalan becomes yours, then the mind becomes subservient. These people do not have control even in eating. Therefore, they do not have control even in this body, and not even in the home and not even in the office.

No control anywhere at all. What can they do?

Questioner: Which one is difficult in all these? Which one is the toughest out of three?

Dadashri: It is difficult in the matter of food. If you do not have control over the wife, 21

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then you can gradually find some solution. You can get someone to show you the way. If you do not have control in the office even then you can find the way. Real control however, should be on food.

Questioner: Authority-control (chalan) on the mind, does it mean I have to keep the mind under control?

Dadashri: If you have decided that, ‘Brother, today I want to take this much food in this proportions’, then you should take according to that. Others’ interference should not be there.

Questioner: At the time of making decision, the mind will show me again, will it not?

Dadashri: Once you have decided, after that, what?

Questioner: Who is the decision maker?

Dadashri: You. Questioner: Pragnya (liberating energy of the Self)?

Dadashri: No. Ego and intellect.

The method of coaxing the mind Questioner: In which matters do I have to keep control and in which matter I should not?

Dadashri: When the mind gets very irritated then you should give in once in a week with, ‘Brother, I will do according to your wishes.’

Questioner: But that is very difficult.

Dadashri: Why? Questioner: If I decide like this everyday that I want to keep my authority and then one day I have to let it be free, again the 22

next day I have to keep control, then there will be a problem. Then the mind will take over.

Dadashri: It will understand that ‘he will stop completely therefore at least one day, so be it!’ If it understands your strictness, then there is no problem. It will totally get stopped instead one day is open, leave it, will you!

What will it do on that day? It will not ask for more food, but it will say, ‘Let’s eat a little dosa (large crisp crepes stuffed with spice vegetables, common in South India)’. Then you say, ‘Everything, let’s go!’ So it will ask in the middle for dosa too, so on that day you should feed it a few.

Questioner: Ego plays a role in keeping one’s authority, does it not?

Dadashri: Ego and intellect, both.

Questioner: Does pragnya (liberating energy of the Self) play a role in that? Pragnya shakti will alert inside, will it not?

Dadashri: Pragnya is for moksha current and ultimate liberation. What concern does it have in this?

Who cheats? Deceptive intent Questioner: Who cheats that ego and intellect?

Dadashri: The mind, who else would cheat? That is because of not having control.

No one is cheating. One does not have control, therefore stay and sit defeated. If this one has control then he will shout, ‘Hey, who is it?

Who is asking for more at this time? Be quiet.

It is night, don’t you understand?’ You have to speak like that inside.

Questioner: How can I bring about that control? I cannot understand that control exactly.

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Dadashri: If you are not able to understand then let it continue the way it is!

Am I going to scold you? Are you going to get a letter from income tax department for this? Let us continue as it is!

Questioner: I cannot let it continue. I want to come in this satsang; that control remains. Mind may show perhaps that ‘let’s take rest at home, for today’, but at that time my control remains that ‘I definitely want to come here.’

Dadashri: So you are exercising control where you like and you don’t where you don’t like, therefore your intent is deceptive. That is what I am saying, am I not? Otherwise, You are the owner and how dare the mind shout at you?

Questioner: Then I would not let it shout even a little. If that friend says, ‘I have this work of five minutes,’ at that time, I would not let it shout even in the slightest, I definitely have to go.

Questioner: I will be the loser for sure, will I not? The intent is deceptive, that much has been confirmed. What am I saying? If I do this test then I will understand how it is.

Dadashri: You should not tease the mind either. You should take work from the mind with much care. And if you end up teasing and harassing it, then feed it a little ice cream.

Questioner: That is right. But if the mind has to be controlled through ego and intellect, then mind will get irritated too.

Dadashri: If it gets irritated then you should give it something. Again we would explain and tell it, ‘Take ice cream, take something.’ Then it will say, ‘Give me three dishes.’ Then you have to say, ‘No, you will get half a dish’. It will say, ‘At least make a full dish, at least make a full dish. Will half a dish work?’ Then you should make a full dish.

Questioner: So does it mean that I should do completely contrary to the mind.

Dadashri: Yes, the intent is deceptive in this so the mind will ‘know’ that, ‘I have succeeded, let’s go.’

Dadashri: Do whatever suits you! I don’t have to do that. I showed you just now, didn’t I?

Once your control is there, then there is no problem. Your control should be there. Then control will be in celibacy (brahmacharya) too. Otherwise, one will follow in brahmacharya according to mind’s dictates only. You cannot follow according to mind’s dictates in brahmacharya. Over there, you have to follow according to goal, even through ego.

You succeed everywhere if you have control here in this one thing

Questioner: There too sometimes weakness arises. It happens as per dictates of the mind.

Dadashri: May be, it may become weak. Whoever will have to lose, he will lose, what is your problem?

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Questioner: That’s all, now I want to become independent. Now I understood that I do not have control in matter of eating at all.

Dadashri: All those others, you have conquered, have you not (sexual faults)?

Questioner: That I have conquered, a hundred percent.

Dadashri: Is that so? You have confidence of that? You conquered one, now you will win this. If you ever take control then you will not have problem in practicing brahmacharya (complete freedom from 23

DADAVANI

sexual impulses through mind-speech-body); I have confidence of that. If the mind has control over the body then finished. If the control comes to the Self and the control of mind dissipates, then one is assured of everything else.

So then where is one’s own independence?

Questioner: Because the mind was in the controlling role in the matter of eating, lot more unawareness (ajagruti) was arising. So then I cannot win over anything else.

Dadashri: Then?

Questioner: So I have to conquer this main fort. Once this fort of mind is conquered in the matter of eating, I get control, then the other thing can become easy.

Dadashri: Yes, and if you do not have control over body then your control will not remain in practicing brahmacharya at all.

Questioner: That is right. Now ‘on the body’ means is that only in the matter of this food?

Dadashri: Then which other matter?

Questioner: I need clothes to wear, no?

Dadashri: Even if not, if he takes everything regularly, if he takes as per our instructions then there will not be problem. He can take a little milk, but as per our dictate, not as per mind’s dictate. Someone may say that, ‘my stomach is not getting full!’ Hey brother, eat some bread so it will swell up like a balloon.

Now did you understand what mistake remains?

Questioner: Yes, I saw the faults, saw the mistakes and pratikraman for mistakes happened with the live presence of ‘Dada Bhagwan’ as my witness.

Dadashri: How far has it happened for you?

Questioner: It is making progress further. It became very clear in the matter of this food. In the matter of food, the control of mind became very up to date.

Dadashri: Did you take in experience today?

Questioner: I decided that I want to eat this much and I want to eat by chewing a lot.

Dadashri: No problem for that. What is the problem of clothes? This matter is the main thing. If the matter of tongue (food) is taken care of, then celibacy can be preserved!

Dadashri: Now you do not forget then!

Did you ask or not, to the one (mind) within?

Is it controllable or not? Should you not ask?

Questioner: In the matter of food, is it true that one should take simple food or any such thing?

Dadashri: Do you not ask? Stuffing in just like that! That fat man was very strong, how many dishes (ice cream) had he eaten?

Dadashri: All is simple only. You do not take ghee-milk or heavy products like that so it is simple only. One should not take oily food.

Questioner: Yes, he will take less oily food. He will take less sweet and savory dishes.

24

Questioner: That is right, I should ask.

Questioner: Fifteen dishes.

Dadashri: He will take fifteen. And if one tells you that, ‘Eat third dish instead of second.’ Oh brother, I am a skinny man, I cannot eat, and he is a big (fat) man, isn’t he?

He ate fifteen dishes.

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Questioner: Dada, I have contrary to this that I cannot eat more at one sitting.

Dadashri: That is a different thing.

Questioner: But, I like to eat if I get at every alternate hour.

Dadashri: Yes, but mind will feel (desire) like eating, will it not? You are not eating, are You? You should not follow the dictates of the mind. You should do only that much which is beneficial for your body, according to mind’s guidance. It will not benefit more than that, it will cause harm. Mind will make you quit your proportion but you should set your proportion.

What is the mind going to lose? Only you have to suffer the consequence, don’t you?

Questioner: Mind will move away thereafter. If I follow according to the mind, then I am considered slave of the mind, am I not?

Dadashri: So where is our independence?

Questioner: Not at all, slave (dependent) only!

No desire, yet mandatory Spiritual lethargy (pramaad) means to keep eating food for no rhyme or reason and so there is no order or discipline in anything.

The whole day long he keeps stuffing himself with whatever he can put his hands on. For so many past years I have been eating as a last resort.

I do not have any inclination and inner liking (ruchi) in eating any food item yet it is mandatory for me to eat. I do not like but I have to eat. I do not have any liking in all this but to suffer and become free from it. Even if I don’t want to eat vedhami (wheaten flatbread with stuffing of mashed split pulse and jaggery topped with clarified butter), I February 2011

have no choice but to suffer (bhogavey) it.

Someone says to ‘us’, ‘Dada, do you want this? You take this, take this.’ But for what I want all this? Just one rotlo and this little vegetable is good enough for me. Why all this trouble, thirty-two varieties of delicacies?

But it is her wish so she will serve. She will serve, so we will take a little. We do not need any such thing because the eater is eating, isn’t he! Where am I eating? The eater will eat. So the eater does not say that ‘I want this.’ Yes, the brokers say like that, the brokers!

Cancelled the brokers Questioner: The middlemen brokers say that, ‘I want such thing to eat and like that?’

Dadashri: Yes. So all those brokers were there, we cancelled them. We do not want you to do the pleading, if you want to stay then stay. So then all are gone. What can they do otherwise? How many days they can stay at one place?

However much Dada earned the balance that much he will show it to others, how much he will show, however much balance came, that much he will show. It will show less if it came less and it will show more if it came more. Did balance come for you a little?

This is for highly elevated living beings to understand, for the one who has sharp intellect, minute understanding.

We have value for even two minutes, don’t we? If upayoga (applied focused awareness as the Self) goes out for two minutes even then we do not like. We do not like if it goes outside to wander needlessly. If one is hungry, even then if upayoga goes out then it is considered a fault. When it (food) comes in your plate at that time You have to keep upayoga.

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This is how upayoga is lost while eating Questioner: You are constantly in samadhi (state of being unaffected despite all external or internal turmoil and in oneness with the Self), You are in the upayoga, are You not?

Dadashri: Fruit of upayoga is samadhi.

So there is no need to remain in samadhi.

Just remain in upayoga. If You remain in upayoga, then the fruit of that is samadhi.

Samadhi is the fruit.

Questioner: Yes, now when You were in upayoga, and desire to eat shingoda (boiled water chestnuts) arose; was it while remaining in upayoga?

Dadashri: No, upayoga stopped there.

Questioner: So then, is there not a desire to eat shingoda while maintaining the upayoga?

Dadashri: No, that upayoga stopped.

Questioner: Upayoga stopped, how is that possible? Dada’s upayoga is always there, is it not?

Dadashri: There cannot be two upayoga at one time. Upayoga can be in some situations and not in some situations, but in the case of shingoda, I did not have the upayoga.

Questioner: So then, that means that, whenever one has such a desire, upayoga stops.

Dadashri: No, it is not even like that.

That desire is different thing, and upayoga is a different thing. Many times, upayoga does not even stop, even when there is a desire. It depends on what kind of internal force there is.

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Questioner: When you are eating, certain things are in front of you, and you feel I want to take this, I want to take that…

Dadashri: He can remain in his upayoga and eat. One will lose his upayoga when it is something that he loves. When I decided to eat shingoda I lost the upayoga.

Questioner: So it is like loving something a lot.

Dadashri: No, not love, but it is slight love for it, and that is why ‘he- the eater’ (Ambalal) got up. Otherwise, he was not hungry. One can understand that he got up because he was hungry. Therefore, it is still considered upayoga. This was ordinary.

Questioner: He (Dada) is eating and at the same time he is talking…

Dadashri: Upayoga cannot be maintained at that time, how can it?

This is how upayoga is maintained while eating What does upayoga mean? How is the eater eating? What is he becoming restless in?

What does he derive most pleasure from?

How does he eat some things and not others?

What exactly is its taste? He maintains upayoga like that. One should eat with upayoga. I have not seen anyone eat with upayoga. He eats fast like a machine. Eating and drinking should all be with upayoga. There is no problem if you cannot, but it is worth if jagruti arises. ‘We’ do not tell you to correct the mistake. Just make sure that You have the awareness not to do it again. Mistake will still happen again. You still maintain jagruti, that what Dada has said, it does not happen. It is still considered jagruti. ‘We’ never talk when we are eating. Whole upayoga is lost when we talk.

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Questioner: Ours goes into the talking.

Dadashri: Yes. But it is the same.

Upayoga goes away into wrong direction for the people. You do realize that you cannot eat while maintaining upayoga?

Upayoga (applied awareness) means; who am I? Who is the one eating? What is the one eating, interested in? If he does not like the taste, tell him that it is good. You have to know all that, with awareness. But if you can remember this much, we tell you that it is more than enough. Even if you say, ‘Whatever Dada tells, I am not able to do that’, then that is more than enough. That upayoga does not stay.

Questioner: But Dada, if we have guests, they are talking to us while we are eating, we have to talk to them.

Dadashri: If they try to talk, tell them, ‘Why don’t we discuss later with ease’.

Questioner: If we are sitting across each other, and the other person keeps talking, then we have to talk to him.

Dadashri: Tell him to first finish eating.

What is the hurry, we can talk at leisure later.

Have you ever maintained jagruti while eating?

But it does not. Whoever’s beginning is not correct, then he will not have the jagruti, upayoga will not become still.

Questioner: But that upayoga should remain in every kriya (that which happens through mind, speech and action); the shuddha upayoga (pure applied awareness of the Self), no?

Dadashri: What I am saying is that it should remain in certain actions. It should remain in the large actions like eating. But upayoga does not remain, and chit has become lose. It cannot be maintained in everything, but it should remain while eating.

Then talking should also be done with upayoga.

Questioner: When one starts talking while eating, he loses the upayoga. Now, if one does not have such understanding, then he thinks that he is properly in Gnan, he has the awareness. But he does not realize these intermediate mistakes.

Dadashri: Lots of mistakes. Many mistakes will happen. Awareness will make You aware, but many other mistakes are there, are they not? That is why we keep talking about this. Awareness will go there if You recognize the mistake. Until one recognizes the mistake, darkness remains. That is why ‘we’ repeatedly caution you. So that you can recognize your mistakes from that and then You can remain aware of them. ~Jai Sat Chit Anand

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