Only One Self

By Nagamma*

11th September, 1947.

Yesterday a Swami came and sat in the hall. He seemed anxious to speak to Bhagavan but hesitant. After some time he approached him and said: "Swami, it is said that Atma is all-pervading. Does that mean that it is in a dead body also?"

"Oho! So that is what you want to know?" Bhagavan rejoined. "And did the question occur to the dead body or to you?"

"To me," he said.

"When you are asleep do you question whether you exist or not?" Bhagavan continued. "It is only after you wake up that you say you exist. In the dream-state also Atma exists. Really there is no such thing as a dead or living body. What does not move we call dead, and what has movement we call living. In dreams you see any number of bodies, living and dead, but they have no existence when you wake up. In the same way this whole world, animate and inanimate, is non-existent. Death means the dissolution of the ego, and rebirth the birth of the ego. There are births and deaths, but they are of the ego, not of you. You exist whether the sense of ego is there or not. You are its source but are not that sense. Mukti (Liberation) means finding the origin of these births and deaths and destroying the very roots of the ego-sense. That is Mukti. It means dying with full awareness. If one dies thus one is born again immediately at the same place with full knowledge of the Self, known as `Aham Aham' (I-I). One who is born thus has no more doubts.

A young European who came here four or five days back asked Bhagavan a number of questions after the chanting of the Vedas yesterday evening. He had already packed to leave. Bhagavan, as usual, countered with the questions: "Who are you? Who is asking questions?"

Finally the young man asked Bhagavan which verse of the Gita he liked most, and Bhagavan replied that he liked them all. When he still persisted in asking which was the most important, Bhagavan told him Book X, verse 20, which runs: "I am the Self, Oh Gudakesa, seated in the heart of all beings; I am the beginning and the middle and the end of all beings."

The questioner was pleased and, on taking leave said: "Swami, this unreal self is obliged to travel owing to the exigencies of work. I pray that you may be pleased to recommend that this unreal self may be merged in the real Self."

Smiling, Bhagavan replied such a recommendation might be necessary only if there were a number of different selves - one to ask for a recommendation, one to recommend and one to hear the recommendation. But there are not so many selves. There is only one Self. Everything is in the one Self, so who am I to address and who would listen?"

* - For a note on Nagamma and her letters see our issue of January 1964.