26 December 1994 — Doubt Is the Business of the Mind

Papaji reads a letter:

It seems to me certain that there are and have been quite a few cases where a person has gained a mistaken conviction about having realised the ultimate truth.

Not just a few. All over the world you will find people who think that they have realised the Self. This includes most of the saints, the sages and the so-called teachers who are telling other people how to find this truth. All these people think that they have found the truth.

Papaji continues reading:

Is the reverse also true? ls it possible to be established in that state of ultimate truth and not know it? If, in that state, one does not reflect on whether one is or is not enlightened, the idea that one is in this state may never arise.

This is the state of just about everyone in the world. Everyone is Self-aware. Everyone is always in this ultimate state that you talk about, but no one believes me when I say this. Why not?

When you try to gain knowledge of something, you always do it through the medium of the mind. So, if you want to find an answer to the question, ‘Am I enlightened?’ you scrutinise yourself with your mind and come to the conclusion that the answer must be ‘no’. Realisation may be there, but you cannot find it, validate it or scrutinise it through the medium of the mind.

If you have to ask yourself this question, ‘Am I enlightened?’ it means there is some doubt about it. Doubt is the business of the mind. In fact, doubt is just another name for the mind. When there is doubt, mind must be there to have the idea, ‘I may not be realized.’ But when there is no doubt, there is no mind, and where there is no mind, there is no doubt.

The awareness that is realisation is beyond the mind. Far, far beyond the mind. It is the business of the mind to keep you unaware of what you really are. It fills you so completely with doubts and fears, it gives you the notion that there is nothing beyond the mind. By continuously generating doubts and fears it accomplishes the trick of preventing you from being aware of who you really are. It keeps you ignorant of the fact your are already realised, that you have always been realised. It is the function of the mind to keep you in the darkness of the past. When there is no mind, there is no past and no time. When there is no mind, the ultimate truth of who you are shines uninterruptedly, unimpeded, and unobscured by wrong ideas.

Papaji continues to read the letter:

On reading the lives of great sages and saints of the past it seems

that the process of realisation differs from person to person. Different individuals seem to get it in different ways.

This is not true. Anyone who thinks that he has attained realisation through any kind of process is not really realised. Truth has no way to take anyone to awareness. Where there is mind, there is ignorance, not attainment of truth. The ideas of a process and an attainment belong to the mind. They have nothing to do with truth.

Papaji continues reading:

Is there any indication by which one can tell if one is truly realised or not?

If you need to look for indications it means you still have some doubt about it. This in itself means that you have not realised because, as I said earlier, doubt means mind.

But if you are trying to decide about someone else, there is one indication that you should always look out for. If you stay near such a person, your mind will be at peace. This is the number one indication.

Look at this picture of the Maharshi behind me. People who went near him felt something which they had never felt anywhere else. ln his proximity, minds became silent. This is the way to test whether or not someone is realised or not. Just sit with him and see what happens.

If you are in a forest and a tiger suddenly appears, your mind stops dead. All your previous plans and schemes, your thoughts and.daydreams, suddenly come to a halt. There is something about a tiger that paralyses people physically and mentally. The mind stops and the body finds itself unable to move. You cannot even run away. This is how it is when you encounter the power of the enlightened one. The body refuses to leave and the mind stops. In this case it is not because of fear, it is because of the love and peace that is felt.