Well, I would tell you to just ‘Know Thyself’. You are that, say the upaniShad-s, so enquire into the enquirer. Who is it who wants to know the truth? That alone is the real locus of enquiry.

A person who really wants to ‘Know the Truth’ starts with the humility of the awareness of the ignorance of the truth, this is a great clean slate, free from any conditionings, simply because you know that you don’t know. Such a simple and open mind is the right platform to know the truth.

Normally when someone wishes to know the truth they pursue some of their conditionings, some hearsay notion of what the truth is like, and correlate some blissful experience with the knowledge of truth. The words like bliss, happiness, fulfilment, etc., drive them to experience something about which they ‘already have some idea’, so they rather pursue their imaginations and conditionings. Their journey doesn’t start with a clean slate, and in fact they already ‘know’. To know that you don’t know is the greatest cleansing agent. Thereafter, you are open and available to enquire, see and realize. The truth of anything is right here and now, for anyone to know, provided they truly want to know the truth, and not make this enquiry into a farce.

So never bother about any so called ‘divine experiences’, etc., because you don’t know what  the truth is like and what are its consequences, but with an open mind just try to deeply appreciate the truth of the very ‘experiencer’, and also what is the truth of ‘any experience’ for that matter. The experiencer is the ego, all experiences are just various means for ego-satisfaction, and every ‘object of experience’ is just as important as the experiencer considers it to be. Ego is basically a limited fellow, having a deep-rooted sense of lack within, which drives him to get more and more, and better and better experiences, but at the end of the day the fellow still remains what it basically is, a lacking guy, needing continuous satisfaction and satiation.

So however ecstatic an experience you get, the moment you come out of it, you continue to remain a thirsty, limited and a lacking fellow. Knowing the truth of these three factors, the experiencer, experiencing and the object of experiences, then one effortlessly becomes free from them. When you have nothing to experience, you are not donning the role of an experiencer, it is negated. There is just a state of being, which is not a product of mind, and that Paula, is your marvellous truth.

Self-enquiry is of the nature of viveka, discrimination, which means to know the untruth as untruth, and having negated the entire gamut of the clouding untruth, realize the truth as truth. The truth of anything is an already existing fact, existing in all its glory, we just need to realize it, by keeping aside all the crap veiling it.

There are so many facets of every individual, some just incidental and thus impermanent, but there is something which is the permanent essence of us. Self-enquiry implies sieving out the untruth from truth, the impermanent from the permanent in you, and thereafter you directly realize that which is, the permanent in and about us.

So the real enquiry is by the process of discrimination and the subsequent negation of the entire gamut of untruth, and thereafter the truth is right here and now to be realized. We all in the beginning do not know the truth, but do know what is the untruth. So can we negate all these things? Knowing clearly a thing as impermanent, can you drop it from your mind, fully, totally? Thereafter you alone are, unclouded by any thoughts or desires. So, just check out that which is impermanent, and thereafter that which is permanent stands as your own being, in all its glory. This is what we call the nitya-anitya viveka.

By the way, non-permanence does not imply that an object has no role or use. Every object has a very important role in the whole scheme of things, but as seekers of truth, we are not bothered about the usability of things in the world, but their permanence. Even a blade of grass has a very important role to play; the moment the green natural carpet of our Mother Earth is taken away, we lose so much - the lively greenery, food for our cattle disappears, and then the soil erosion starts and all kinds of ecological problems and disasters follow. So everything has a role, but it is also a fact that all these things come and go, they are not permanent and what we as seekers of truth want is to awaken to something that is permanent, so we have to keep every impermanent thing aside.

So, the way to the permanent is by negating that which is impermanent, to really efface our minds of all the conditionings of everything that is impermanent, so that which is really left behind can be dis-covered or uncovered.

Negation implies dropping off the importance of things in our minds by deeply and clearly realizing their impermanency. Like as grown ups we do not have any value for our childhood toys, etc. There is no importance for them any more and, therefore, they do not really give us any joy or sorrow, as they did in childhood. They have been negated from our minds, there is no place for them in our mind now, so also when all that is changing is negated from our minds, then, we shall realize our truth.

Negation is not really an act, but an inevitable consequence of deep knowledge of various things. So it again boils down to deep knowledge, and thereafter just being true to our conviction. The very fact that you wish to know the truth implies that all what you know is not the truth. This world, with all its pleasures and beauty, its comforts, various relationships, duties, money, organization, country and all its politics, etc., we know that all this is not going to last forever, yet this is what has a place in our minds and hearts. We think about all this, work for all this, pray, dream and enjoy all this alone.

So the truth is that while we intellectually know that all this is temporary and impermanent, it is yet to be negated. All this has yet to become like childhood toys. Today, all this play is a serious matter, bringing anxieties, stresses and even heartbreaks, as though this alone is the truth, and that which really matters. So are we really the seeker of truth? On the one hand we say I want the truth, because we intimately know that all this is not permanent, yet we continue to revel in all this alone.

So here we have another problem, the problem of not having the strength to live as per our convictions, or is it that we are yet to really know about their impermanence and other associated consequences? There is also the possibility that we are not really so serious about knowing the truth, and that is why we continue to revel in all that which we know as untruth. Such a mind responds not by convictions but by conditionings. The impressions which we gathered while growing up have taken such deep roots that our convictions are non-effective. However much we know, our lives basically remain same. The same things continue to affect us. We continue to wish, work and pray for the same worldly things. Do we ever pray for knowledge of truth as we pray for the things of world?

So the scriptures do not prompt us to jump immediately onto the bandwagon of the knowledge of truth, but slowly help us to first be free of our conditionings. This is called ‘purification of mind’. Purification of mind implies empowerment and freedom in responses, loosening of the hold of conditionings, the capacity to know something deeply and properly, and most importantly the capacity to live as per our convictions.

So in the traditional scheme of things, the whole spiritual journey is divided into two phases: one, purification or preparation of the mind; and two, initiation into the proper and deep enquiry into the Self. When there is a pure mind, then the desire for mokSha is natural and deep. Even the very meaning of mokSha is not clear for an ordinary man.

mokSha does mean freedom, total freedom, permanent freedom. Freedom from all limitations, all insecurities, all fears, sorrows, etc. But what exactly is the nature of bondage and therefore how exactly do we attain such a mokSha is the multi-million dollar question. In one of our ancient books called Siddhanta Bindu by a celebrated author named Madhusudan Saraswati, more than 30-odd prevalent concepts of bondages have been listed. Most of the religions too just aim for a heavenly life hereafter. Is not getting divine pleasures the real problem? Will this really help us get over the deep-rooted feeling of anxiety? So before we hark upon the journey of mokSha, let's pause and think what exactly is our bondage.

Experience of anxiety, etc., is because of fear of losing something or not getting the desired thing. We seem to need so many things, and the presumption is that then alone we shall be complete and fulfilled. This implies that today we are basically incomplete, insecure and unfulfilled, and that is why we keep working to ‘get’ these things. Now is this conclusion factual or illusory? The wise say it is illusory and the other-wise believe that it is real, and keep working to acquire what they think shall fill their cups. Yet the truth is that even the billionaires keep acquiring more and more, and thus their problem continues to exist. Acquisition of wealth, etc., is no solution, because the moment something happens to that on which you depend, then again the insecurity and fears surface.

So in spite of acquisitions, we continue to remain a wanting being. The fact is that this very presumption that ‘I am a limited fellow’ is a false and baseless conclusion, and thus every strategy is going awry. It is comparable to dreaming that I am this or that, and no amount of dream food shall ever satiate the dream stomach. It just has to be appreciated as a dream and negated and we have to realize our truth.

Why are we uncomfortable with limitation, simply because limitation is not natural to us? Why do we want fulfilment? Because fulfilment is natural to us, there is a natural movement towards our natural state. So instead of trying to fulfil the ego, we need to appreciate our truth, which is our most natural state. mokSha is defined in advaita vedAnta as an endeavour to just realize and abide in our truth. That’s all. In such a state there are no limitations, no insecurities, no fears – and thus no anxieties, etc. That’s the way to freedom – mokSha.

This alone is mokSha. There is no fear, no insecurity and no sense of limitation. Such a person transcends the level of ego-centric existence. Just imagine what the world will be like when no one has any intrinsic fear, insecurity or want, everyone lives in fulfilment. True love is possible only when there is no selfishness. All wars too are product of the deep fears or cravings of someone. Whether it is personal needs, relationships, security, everything changes for the better. You live like a fulfilled person without having to depend on anything. If you know the permanent as your very Self, then you are beyond birth and death. These things are so big and profound that it takes time even to digest their full implications. The question about myself and my needs are negated once and for all: like I’m going to die, that I am insecure, that I need wealth and comfort, that I need pleasure. That want is no longer any want from within. An enlightened person can live in this moment fully, enjoying this life fully, not because of something but in spite of everything. This is real liberation. You are liberated from your own mind, your insecurities, and that is the beauty of awakening to the moment. It is therefore Self-knowledge that redeems. There is a famous mantra in the upaniShad-s:

Yasmin vigyate sarvam idam vigyatam bhavati
This thing revealed, everything is revealed thereafter

Disenchantments happen when you pursue a mirage, some untruth, some experience. This all the more reveals the importance of first knowing that which is the truth. So don’t pursue some concept, but first appreciate what is bondage and what is mokSha. One needs to tread the path of truth with very great humility – I do not know but I want to know; then this disenchantment will never happen. Desire for knowledge has certainly to be there, and also a very intense one, as intense as a yogi, whose matted locks have caught fire, and is running around trying to find water.

While this is indeed generally so, it need not be so. You can face this very life without any anxieties.

People like us, the sanyasi-s, who are not householders, have no jobs or formal relationships, yet really speaking we have a very big family. In my ashram I have to take care of my students, their food, their health, emotional well-being, their studies, sAdhanA, etc., then I too have to handle tax issues and so on! So the world with its various responsibilities and problems does not change, but yet something has changed drastically for me. Now I can remain cool, unaffected and continue to give out my best. I can focus my attention on my studies, sAdhanA and the teachings, as if nothing is happening.

So it doesn’t really matter if you are a householder or living in an ashram, you initially need to start with handling the various anxieties while living in this very world with all its stressful situations and challenges.

As I mentioned before in the bhagavadgIta, Arjuna wanted to get away from this world of endless and thoughtless cravings, violence, selfishness, etc.; in such a state of mind there was no value for kingdom or victory, he just wanted to get away from everything. Even in such a disenthused and despondent situation, Krishna says that is not the way to do it. Just running way from a situation is no answer, it is no assurance that you will have a peaceful and a pure mind and life hereafter, because basically the problem is in the mind and it will make you suffer in any situation where you finally go to. So first learn to live in the ups and downs of life without anxieties, learn to remain unaffected, learn to give out your best in all situations, then, you are ready for the next stage.

Life is a blessing, everyone needs to live it fully, and that is why one needs to know the truth. Never reject life. Real wisdom is all about turning life into a blessing rather than it becoming a curse. That which makes the life a curse is nothing outside, but ignorance of our truth and the subsequent egoistic level of existence. Ego limits us, makes us live like a petty and insecure individual, fragments our perceptions, creates likes and dislikes, divides the world, and culminates in endless seeking and all the associated pain, sorrow, grief, violence and wars, etc.

So the real issue is not really to face or not to face life, but to face life as an ignorant individual, or a wise one - strong, fearless, secure, exuding fulfilment, love and enthusiasm. If you can stand coolly in all situations then obviously you are conscious of your truth, or at least have faith about it; if you react and try to escape then obviously you have taken the small, limited ‘individuality’ as something real and have opted for living with a baseless and delusory foundation. So whatever the situation is, face it firmly, wisely and lovingly – with equanimity. That’s the way to go.

Real detachment is not running away from responsibilities, challenges or relationships. It is standing firmly and confidently in the midst of all situations, problems, and then acting consciously, deliberately, intelligently, lovingly. Such a living not only facilitates your inner awakening, but is also a blessing for your day-to-day worldly life. That is why this is the right way to live.

Once you have such a sattvic mind, then alone you will have the strength to negate all that which is impermanent and thus awaken to that which cannot be negated any further - which is One, non-dual, infinite and permanent, as your own very Self. So to summarize, the entire spiritual journey is broadly in two phases: first we prepare our minds, and thereafter we turn our attention to the discovery of the timeless truth. That is it, there’s nothing else!

[Interview conducted Summer 2010]