Remove all becoming, you are Being.
Becoming is effort, Being is not effort.
You are always That so be like the breeze
that is attached to neither the garbage nor
the garden that it blows over.
- Papaji
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
Read
a fascinating account of circumstances leading up to David
Godman writing a book. Comments show that he is also
actively answering questions on his blog.
For no particular reason I feel like telling a story of some
odd ‘coincidences’ that came into my life back in the
1980s.
In 1983 I was in
London, staying in the house of a friend of mine, Christine
Hodder. Her partner, Piers, knew a man in Hampstead who wanted
someone to house sit for him while he went on holiday. Piers, who
had been a devotee of Bhagavan for years, introduced me and gave
me a recommendation. The man who owned the house was a retired
professor of art, having taught for many years at a prestigious London
art school. His main claim to fame in the academic world was
discovering hidden Rosicrucian symbols in centuries-old
paintings.
Here, as promised yesterday, is the interview I gave to Integral
Yoga Magazine on Papaji’s approach to self-enquiry.
Unlike the interview on Ramana Maharshi’s teachings on this
subject, which I posted yesterday, this interview is not built
around material that I had already posted on my site.
Integral
Yoga Magazine: What is the essence of Papaji’s
teachings?
David
Godman:Papaji insisted that he was not a teacher and that he
had no teachings. This was a somewhat perverse and paradoxical
position for him to make because he spent decades of his life
teaching people and giving them experiences of the Self.
Papaji liked a
Tamil phrase that Ramana Maharshi often uttered: ‘Summa
iru’, which means ‘Be quiet’, or ‘Be
still’. He said that taking the mind back to its source and
making it abide there, without a single thought, was the way to
make the Self reveal itself. If he had a teaching at all, it was
telling people to ‘Be quiet’. Most people attempt to
accomplish this in their spiritual practices; Papaji actually had
the ability to make it happen for you while you were sitting in
front of him.