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Śrī Śrī Devapurīṣi Mahādeva Kī Jai, Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṃsa, Śrī Svāmī Māravānanda Purī Jī Mahārāja Kī Jai, Viśvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṃsa, Śrī Svāmī Maheśvarānanda Purī Jī, Satguru Deva Kī Jai, Hari Om Tat Sat. Svāmījī Gajānanjī is speaking today, sir. I’m listening. You may take a little rest. You can rest a little. So that’s my contribution, Hari Om. So this is my contribution. Hari Om. Today, as Svāmījī’s first topic for Kriyānuṣṭhāna was about the Upaniṣads, and yesterday he made a slight change with Līlā Amṛt, I would like to return to the Upaniṣads—and especially to the bhajans. The Upaniṣads are part of the Vedas. The Vedas contain four sections: the first is the Mantra Saṃhitā, a collection of mantras; the second is Jātma; then there is the portion that deals with how to address various events; others study the essence more deeply; and the last part of the Vedas are the Upaniṣads. Vedānta means the end of the Veda or the essence of the Vedas. The difficulty with the Upaniṣads is that you cannot understand them, because they are not written to be understood—they are written to be realized. The Upaniṣads are essentially a discourse on that which cannot be spoken. They were written by witnesses who have realized the highest truth, and that is what they try to share with us. But they face a problem: the highest truth is unity, yet the medium through which they can share it is language, and language is built on duality. So when we try to describe it, we can say it is like this and not like that—it is male, not female; it is black, not another color; it is large, not small. In this way we keep removing something by choice. Yet the highest truth cannot be spoken of in an ordinary manner. There are three ways in which the Upaniṣads offer us at least a hint. One is through negation, where we say what it is not. This creates an orientation: I say to myself, “Alright, it’s not like this, nor like that, nor like this—it must be different.” Another way is paradox. For example, it is written in the Upaniṣads that Ātmā is the greatest but also the smallest; Ātmā does not move, yet it is everywhere. These absurdities confuse the mind. On one hand, the intellect would want to grapple with them, but on the other hand it cannot, and finally the intellect surrenders. That moment of surrender is precisely when realization becomes possible. In Zen Buddhism they turn this into a practice: the master gives the disciples a riddle and says, “Now go meditate until you find the answer.” One of those koans is, “What is the sound of the right hand clapping?” That is impossible, but you must answer it. It is like trying to preserve a coconut in a certain way. And the most beautiful way to speak about that which cannot easily be spoken is through stories. Every saint uses stories; even the New Testament is full of the stories Jesus used. You will also find many stories in the Upaniṣads. Last week we spoke about Naciketā and Lord Yama. We must be careful not to destroy or misuse these stories, because they want to touch something within us. They want to inspire us to continue. When we reduce them with the intellect—“this means this, and that means that”—we lose their deeper purpose. The Upaniṣads speak directly about the highest truth. Of course, that is not for everyone; it is only for those who are truly spiritually seeking, who follow the master and practice. Therefore, upaniṣad means to sit close to the guru and listen to him. There are certain scriptures that are very close to the Upaniṣads. For example, the Bhagavad Gītā—at the end it is called an Upaniṣad. Then there are the classical yogic scriptures, such as Vedyā Viveka Cūḍāmaṇi, which speaks about Viveka. And the most complicated are the Vedānta Sūtras. All these are scriptures that have authority. Now let us look at our bhajans. We have many bhajans about bhakti, and we have several bhajans of different types. But in our bhajan book there is a group of bhajans where Mahāprabhujī and other witnesses have the authority to speak about the Upaniṣads. Four of these bhajans are quite exceptional. There are two from Ādi Śaṅkarācārya: “Śivo’ham, Śivo’ham”—“I am Śiva, I am the supreme divine consciousness.” This text is in Sanskrit: “Mano buddhya haṅkāra citta ni nāhaṃ, na ca śrotra jihve na ca ghrāṇa netre…”—I am neither the mind, intellect, ego, nor the consciousness; nor am I the senses, life force, or the inner controller. So in the end, this is what remains. Then we have two bhajans from Mahāprabhujī, which are similar in music and meaning: “The true Guru gives the command, the true Guru gives the message.” These four bhajans are clearly like our Upaniṣads. But they are not the only four; we have several others as well. The Upaniṣads are explained either through paradox, negation, or story. When we look at Bhajan Śaṅkarācārya, we find there “na, na, na”—and “na” means “no.” That is very clear, like the meditation of the Jñānayogī: “I am not that, I am not that.” All four antaḥkaraṇas, the four puruṣārthas—constantly repeating, “I am not this, I am not this, I am not this.” And positively saying, “Śivānanda, Śivo’ham, Śivo’ham. My form is Śivānanda, or as we always say, Sat-Cit-Ānanda.” It is not that personification with the trident. Here he gives us such an insight. Originally this is not a bhajan; it consists of six steps of Nirvāṇa. But since it is poetry, we can simply sing it as a bhajan. And it explains Nirvāṇa Samādhi very clearly—for example, in just one line: “Ahaṃ bhojanam naiva, bhojyam na bhojakaḥ.” “Bhojana” means to eat: I am not the one who eats, I am not the food, I am not the act of eating. That is exactly what Svāmījī says about samādhi: I am not the one who meditates, I am not the object of meditation, nor am I the process of meditation, because all of that has become one. And this is a sentence that can speak about unity. So the highest philosophy is called Advaita—A-dvej, non-duality. And that is the problem: how to speak within duality about what is beyond duality? How to speak in duality about what duality is not? The two bhajans from Mahāprabhujī also speak of this highest truth, and Svāmījī spoke about them quite often. My Satguru gave me such a visit, a hint of a message, and I have realized my true essence, my form. “Sva” means self. And here we do not have so many negations; we have more paradoxes. One thing is said, and then something else is said that contradicts it. For example, Mahāprabhujī said: “Dāsa and svāmī”—I am a servant and I am a master. So what now? That just doesn’t seem to fit together. And this is the most important verse here. If you were orthodox Christians, you might say this is blasphemy. When Mahāprabhujī says, “I sing of my own glory, and I am the one who listens”—have you ever wondered what exactly we are singing? I sing about how wonderful I am and listen to it. And who has the right to speak this way? Only the one who has realized who they are. That is what he says at the beginning: “I have realized my true self. I know that I am God. And I sing of the glory of God, and I am happy to be able to listen to it.” Because there is no longer any duality there. If we were to imitate that without realization, it would not be so wise. This is a major problem in Jñāna Yoga: these declarative statements are very accurate when spoken by someone who has realized them, but they are excellent traps for the ego. When we begin to identify with these sentences, then it is the ego. And so we definitely need some kind of superior, and that is the guru. Svāmījī quite often spoke about this bhajan, but now let us turn to the other one: “Mera Sattva Guru Diyo Sandesho” about Mahāprabhujī. Svāmījī spoke very rarely or not at all about this bhajan. Here again there are sentences that can shatter our mind, and it seems to contradict what Svāmījī teaches us. But from Mahāprabhujī, this bhajan is a little psychological. I believe that when someone approaches it with understanding, it functions as a kind of warning. How often do we, as individual souls, get stuck when we cling to certain concepts? Sometimes these situations arise. Often it happens that Svāmījī says something in satsang that is completely contrary to what he constantly tells us. I spoke with friends, and they realized the same thing. I believe it is because we should not cling too much to mental concepts. Reality, truth, is only so far. So we will devote ourselves to this bhajan. “My Sadguru gave me the message, mehu jesu kutesu”—“mehu” means “I am,” which answers the question of questions in yoga: “Who am I?” And now you receive the answer. Mahāprabhujī responds: “I am.” And so we want to hear more—who are you, what are you like? And now it comes: “My dṛṣṭi kvotéso.” That means “I am as I am.” I am as I am. I am who I am. And what do we know now? We do not know much. But in reality, we know everything. It seems that he says nothing, but in reality he says everything. If he were to say even one word more, it would be incorrect. What more could he say? “I am old, I am wise, I am a man, I am an Indian”—these are all incorrect concepts that arise from identification with this body. But that is not us. And so here the sentence goes: “I am.” I have realized the state of pure Being—that is the essence. And this cannot be described, it cannot be qualified. So this is a sentence from the highest perspective. For our mind, these become koans when we do not understand them very well. There is no Chīvātman. There is no Chīvātma. There is no Brahma, the formless God. What does he actually want to tell us? A concept of something we do not know, but we think we understand through the concept we know. The only thing he says now is: “Make him an Eka Ajaya”—I am the only one. Or as Ādi Śaṅkarācārya often says, “I am one without a second.” And when you realize this, even the universe disappears—because it was never a second, but the second. Why is it there? Wouldn’t it be the second one? First, second, third. And this is the great message of the highest truth. All these sounds, mantras, in reality do not exist. “Meshabdha Titarahani”—I am there, beyond the sound. “Nahi avyakrit kolesho”—there is nothing, no trace of anything. There is nothing there, absolutely nothing, except the unmanifested pure Being. Only that unmanifested, unexpressed Being. That is exactly what he described and says, “mehu”—I am. That is exactly what “I am” describes. You can say that Being is, and that is all. Now in his warnings it becomes clearer. “Nahi sūtra ātmā jñānu”—do not accept the concept of Sūtra Ātma. Sūtra means thread. There is this idea that between individual incarnations there is a kind of red thread: in one life you were a bacterium, in the next life a tree, then a tree again, then a worm, then a cow, then a human being. And our mind wants to understand that. These various forms are like coats that we put on and take off, and we know that these garments are not who we are. But we want to know who is the one we dress and undress. So there must be something like a red thread that connects one life to another and to the next. This concept is called Sūtra Ātma. And Mahāprabhujī says: forget it, you simply cannot understand it. We all know how it came into being: that is called Hiraṇyagarbha, the golden egg, also called Brahmā, the creator. And he says, do not associate yourself with concepts such as these. Who was the one who came first? Here is this word: Ajasambhu. Svāmījī often uses a different word, Svayambhū. When Svāmījī says that Śiva is Svayambhū—the One who was not created, the One who created Himself. So now we have a beautiful concept: everything is created, but Śiva created Himself. But Mahāprabhujī says, that is just a mental concept. Forget all of that. It may give us inspiration, but we must not forget that we have to realize it. Often those who think they know struggle with what they think they know, and that bears no fruit. And now, practically, comes what Svāmījī wants to say. All these concepts are just concepts, so what are we to do with them? When someone comes under my shelter and the shelter of the guru, then they can realize. Then one can be liberated from the cycle of rebirth. And how? It is Amara Mantra He Esu—through the Mantra. The mantra is considered Amara, immortal. As Svāmījī says, the mantra is not created by man; if it is, it is not a mantra. Mantra is immortal and leads us to immortality. It is called Gunza Beheda. And what I am telling you now is bheda, it is a secret. But you know, I cannot teach you even that secret—just a distant echo of this mystery. Śrī Svāmī Dīpavara Māyā said that Mahāprabhujī gives us only inspiration. There is something there, you may go for now. But what I can tell you in words is like an echo of that mystery. O Parabhagijan, listen! But you are fortunate to hear this. You can receive that inspiration. So what should you do? Go to the master, receive the mantra, and practice. And then one day you can realize the Upaniṣad. To realize the Upaniṣads, to realize that mystery, and then you will have trouble explaining it to others. So we will sing that bhajan. One more word: we said that these bhajans are like Upaniṣads that speak of the highest truth. There are two ways to approach them. Some bhajans are very strong, powerful—when the saint gives us inspiration, it is the ultimate victory, and those bhajans are powerful because they celebrate victory. Then there are bhajans that are like meditation, leading us into that state of consciousness. This is the case with the bhajan “Śivo’ham Śivo’ham.” Svāmījī often speaks about it and says, “It is not a bhajan, it is meditation.” And you should sing it as a meditation. So first we will celebrate, and for that we need a strong rhythmic group. Who can play the dholak? And do you all have mañjīrās? This is one of those powerful bhajans, powerful Upaniṣads. The other ones are also very practical for us because they can lead us directly into meditation, like the bhajan “Śivo’ham Śivo’ham.” “I am Śiva, I am the supreme divine consciousness. Vahy Ātmā Sat Cit Ānanda Mehu”—again, “Mehu,” I am. The same statement that we also have in the bhajan. Vahy Ātmā, this Ātmā is Sat-Cit-Ānanda, and this is me. Amar ātmā. This ātmā is immortal. It is Sacittānanda, and it is I. This is how Viśvaka—what the Paramātmā is, the Ātmā is indeed the essence of all living beings. Here he says that the Ātmā which is within me… Svāmījī often spoke about it. It is important that we keep that refrain in memory: I am Śiva. Śiva means the formless supreme consciousness. You cannot describe it in any way, because it is nirguṇa, without form. Whenever you would say something about it, it would already be incorrect. You can only say, “It is.” There is nothing specific there. And yet, all that concrete arose from this. But that is only so far—that is the origin, that is the root, and that is within us. So let us also sing this bhajan and try to be aware of the meaning of the refrain, more like a meditation. Now we do not need any rhythms, but inner awareness. It is not about music now; it is a kind of poetic meditation. I am Ātman, the immortal Ātman. I am Sat Cit Ānanda. Sat—truth, reality, that which is, that which always is, always was, and always will be, because we cannot destroy it. Cit is divine consciousness, not human consciousness. We are aware of something, but this is the origin of our consciousness; our consciousness is such a reflection. And Ānanda, bliss. It is not the joy that we know. Every joy we know in this world depends on certain conditions: you are hungry, then you have good food and you are happy. But that changes; after some time you feel hungry again. In this physical world Ānanda does not have three hands; Ānanda simply exists, it is there. We do not need to do anything for that, because that is who we are. And this is our true nature. If we know this even once, then we are already in bliss—because we are that bliss. Śivo’ham Śivo’ham… Keep your eyes closed and remain focused on this meaning. And let us finish with a gentle Oṃ.