Q: We are told that total surrender to the Guru is enough, that the Guru will do the rest.
M: Of course, when there is total surrender, complete relinquishment of all concern with one's past,
presents and future, with one's physical and spiritual security and standing, a new life dawns, full of
love and beauty; then the Guru is not important, for the disciple has broken the shell of self-defence.
Complete self-surrender by itself is liberation.
Q: When both the disciple and his teacher are inadequate, what will happen?
M: In the long run all will be well. After all, the real Self of both is not affected by the comedy they play for a time.
They will sober up and ripen and shift to a higher level of relationship.
Q: Or, they may separate.
M: Yes, they may separate. After all, no relationship is forever. Duality is a temporary state.
Q: Is it by accident that I met you and by another accident shall we separate never to meet again?
Or is my meeting you a part of some cosmic pattern, a fragment in the great drama of our lives?
M: The real is meaningful and the meaningful relates to reality. If our relationship is meaningful to
you and me, it cannot be accidental. The future affects the present as much, as the past.
Q: How can I make out who is a real saint and who is not?
M: You cannot, unless you have a clear insight into the heart of man. Appearances are deceptive.
To see clearly, your mind must be pure and unattached. Unless you know yourself well, how can
you know another? And when you know yourself -- you are the other.
Leave others alone for some time and examine yourself. There are so many things you do not know
about yourself -- what are you, who are you, how did you come to be born, what are you doing now
and why, where are you going, what is the meaning and purpose of your life, your death, your
future? Have you a past, have you a future? How did you come to live in turmoil and sorrow, while
your entire being strives for happiness and peace? These are weighty matters and have to be
attended to first. You have no need, nor time for finding who is a jnani and who is not?
Q: I must select my guru rightly.
M: Be the right man and the right Guru will surely find you.
Q: You are not answering my question: how to find the right Guru?
M: But I did answer your question. Do not look for a Guru, do not even think of one. Make your goal
your Guru. After all, the Guru is but a means to an end, not the end in itself. He is not important, it is
what you expect of him that matters to you. Now, what do you expect?
Q: By his grace I shall be made happy, powerful and peaceful.
M: What ambitions! How can a person limited in time and space, a mere body-mind, a gasp of pain
between birth and death, be happy? The very conditions of its arising make happiness impossible.
Peace, power, happiness, these are never personal states, nobody can say 'my peace', 'my power'
-- because 'mine' implies exclusivity, which is fragile and insecure.
Q: I know only my conditioned existence; there is nothing else.
M: Surely, you cannot say so. In deep sleep you are not conditioned. How ready and willing you
are to go to sleep, how peaceful, free and happy you are when asleep!
Q: I know nothing of it.
M: Put it negatively. When you sleep, you are not in pain, nor bound, nor restless.
Q: I see your point. While awake, I know that I am, but am not happy; in sleep I am, I am happy,
but I don?t know it. All I need is to know that I am free and happy.
M: Quite so. Now, go within, into a state which you may compare to a state of waking sleep, in
which you are aware of yourself, but not of the world. In that state you will know, without the least
trace of doubt, that at the root of your being you are free and happy. The only trouble is that you are
addicted to experience and you cherish your memories. In reality it is the other way round; what is
remembered is never real; the real is now.
Q: All this I grasp verbally, but it does not become a part of myself. It remains as a picture in my
mind to be looked at. Is it not the task of the Guru to give life to the picture?
M: Again, it is the other way round. The picture is alive; dead is the mind. As the mind is made of
words and images, so is every reflection in the mind. It covers up reality with verbalisation and then
complains. You say a Guru is needed, to do miracles with you. You are playing with words only.
The Guru and the disciple are one single thing, like the candle and its flame. Unless the disciple is
earnest, he cannot be called a disciple. Unless a Guru is all love and self-giving, he cannot be
called a Guru. Only reality begets reality, not the false.