Sublime

Therefore the practical discipline (sadhana) of the way of liberation is a progressive disentanglement of one’s Self (atman) from every identification. It is to realize that I am not this body, these sensations, these feelings, these thoughts, this consciousness. The basic reality of my life is not any conceivable object. Ultimately it is not even

But, and this can hardly be said too many times, ānanda is simply the chief by-product of realization, it is not the goal of the path, and it is not more divine than anything else. If you think otherwise, you will starting grasping after it and building a new “spiritual” self-image around it, and then you are caught again. Probably the greatest

Who is it that asks himself “Who am I”? How can one not know the Self? Who is it that inquires? Where do you assume yourself to be? What are you taking yourself to be? Existing all the while as the Self, you are the Self, so who is ignorant of what? Who does not know whom?

The highest state, complete and final, is sahaja samadhi, referred to briefly at the beginning of Chapter Two. This is pure uninterrupted Consciousness, transcending the mental and physical plane and yet with full awareness of the manifested world and full use of the mental and physical faculties, a state of perfect equilibrium, perfect harmony,

For example, when Ram asks Hanuman, “Who are you, Hanuman?” Hanuman answers, “When I don’t know who I am, I serve you. When I know who I am, I am you.”

The Buddha once spent a night in a potter’s shed. In the same shed there was a young recluse who had arrived there earlier.1 They did not know each other. The Buddha observed the recluse, and thought to himself: ‘Pleasant are the ways of this young man. It would be good if I should ask about him’. So the Buddha asked him: ‘O bhikkhu,2 in whose name