The recently published book ‘Blueprints for Awakening,’ compiled by Premananda comprises dialogues with Indian Masters on the Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi.
The Masters are: Ajja, Ramesh Balsekar, Brahmam, Sw. Dayananda, Ganesan, D.B. Gangolli, Kiran, Sri Nannagaru, Sw. Pramananda, Radha Ma, Samdarshi, Sw. Satchidananda, Ma Souris, Swami Suddhananda, Thuli Baba
The questions relate to the major topics which one meets on the spiritual journey: Awakening, Self-enquiry, the nature of the mind and the world, guru and devotion. For details about purchasing this book, go to this link here.
Excerpt from the book part of interview with Radha Ma:
Question: It has been suggested that the mind must be destroyed for liberation to occur. Do you have a mind?
Radha Ma: No, no. The mind is illusion. The mind does not exist anymore. I don't know what mind is.
Question: You say that you don't have mind; if you got in a car then you could drive the car, right? When you worked as a tax officer you could work with computers and with figures and calculations, right? So for doing those kinds of things you need a mind.
Radha Ma: Sure, also I have a point of view to answer all these questions and I should have a dictionary in my mind to speak all these words, right? But it comes spontaneously from consciousness, from my inner being. It's not through the mind. Mind always manipulates, judges; nothing of this happens here. Before I answer a question I don't have to think whether I am right or wrong, nothing like that. That is the problem with the mind. The mind always calculates and manipulates, but when something comes from spontaneity - the mind never existed here. I don't know whether I am right or wrong from your point of view, I don't care about it either. There is no judgement, nothing. It just happens.
Question: When you say you don't have a mind, do you mean that you don't have the memories, experiences, worries, conditionings and knowledge that society and teachers gave you? Are you saying that you have a mind in the sense you can do things when you need to, to operate your body?
Radha Ma: Yes, that has been taken care of, but there have also been so many days that I have lived without food. I am beyond the physical and beyond the mental, the mind cannot be here now. All these emotions and attachments are transcended. I don't want to say that I am different; the moment I say that I don't have mind I feel I am different from you. It feels ugly to say it, but it is true.
Question: Could you say, 'I am not attached to my mind'?
Radha Ma: No, there is no mind at all to be attached to! Attachment is a different thing. I don't have a mind at all, it does not exist, it's an illusion. And once you cut off that illusion, where does it come from? There is no mind at all. It is just an illusion.
Question: Are you telling me that since you were very young you never really had a mind? You never really lived in your thoughts?
Radha Ma: No. No thoughts. I don't know how to explain it more than that. I didn't have words to explain those stages. I was what I was. Maybe what I was when I was a child and what I am today are the same. There is no difference in me, I am the same. So what you say about the mind is relative. I don't find that the world or mind exist for me, but as the body is in the world, you think I am in the world. And because I talk, you think that I have mind too. Apparently it looks like that, but it is not.
Question: When you worked in the tax office it looked like you had a mind to do these complicated calculations.
Radha Ma: Nothing of the sort. It is being taken care of. In fact I didn't study much about these things. I didn't even study computers. The moment I wanted to learn about computers I went to a hardware training institute. My lecturers objected. They told me, 'You are a tax consultant and don't have any electronics background so we can't teach you. You need some electronics background.'
But after a few days it was as if I knew the subject best in the class. I was even correcting the master; I told him that he was wrong in so many things. He was really shocked and he thought that I had learned it somewhere else and that I was there teasing him. (both laugh) This really happened, I am not joking! Actually they thought that I had learned it somewhere else and was coming to class to annoy these people, but I was not. The moment I had made the decision to learn it, the knowledge came to me.
Then I found that there is no need for me to learn anything. Whether in this world or another world there is no need to learn. Everything is already available. When you use a computer you use a server. I am a client, so I receive whatever record is being sent by the server - that's what happens. The ultimate takes care of that. I don't have anything of my own, just a monitor is enough. So whatever the server sends, the client receives it, that's it! I need not have a CPU (central processing unit) of my own.
Question: When Western people come with their minds, their sufferings, their worries, tensions and fears, can you understand immediately that this is an illusion, that this is not true? What do you say to them?
Radha Ma: Whether a person is Western or Indian, all suffering and pain are illusions. You are dreaming and you believe that you are having a nightmare; you dream that a tiger is chasing you, but it is an illusionary tiger and illusionary fear too. Any suffering, whether it is Western or Indian or whatever, is like that; all suffering is illusion. You imagine you suffer, that's it. There is no suffering really. Everything is perfect in you.
Everything is exactly as it should be! Yes, it is perfect. I can say that you are dreaming. I can say it one hundred and one times but still you dream and still you are frightened of the tiger; you can't help it, because it is perfect and it should be like that.
You yourself will wake up from the dream one day and see that all those times you were chased and frightened by an imaginary tiger! But everything is perfect. It is perfect for you to be afraid now. It is perfect for you to have the nightmare now. We can't say that it is wrong, it is perfect.
Question: Are you saying that you accept whatever comes, whether it be happy or unhappy, sad, angry or blissful?
Radha Ma: Mind is illusion, so why are you bothered if mind is angry or not, or whether it is jealous or suspicious? The mind itself is illusory, so why should you be bothered by this negative quality of the mind? Everything is perfect. Mind is like this. Mind can be angry or peaceful, mind can be happy or unhappy. But it is illusion. How to say something is good or something is bad in the illusion? This illusion is illusion, it is still illusion, and it is perfect whatever comes.
Question: What do you say to somebody that comes to you? You tell them that it is an illusion, but still they are suffering and they come every day to see you with this pain. The pain is there from something which they believe so strongly that they can't just throw it away. What do you say to them?
Radha Ma: I say the same thing to them: it is all perfect! You suffered, it's perfect. You trusted, it's perfect. So many people seek in the world and then come back. They say, 'We have meditated for ten years and we didn't get it,' and they are frustrated. And this frustration is perfect. I can say that your seeking is a waste, but this is not real for you. My knowledge and my Truth is not real for you, it is not your Truth; you have to find out your own Truth.
So I say this, 'What you are seeking is stupidity, there is no enlightenment,' but still your mind can't accept that. You meditate for one week and there is no enlightenment, so the mind says 'Why should I meditate?' So you stop meditating and then next week the mind comes back and says, 'What you are doing is rubbish. You have to sit and meditate.'
That's what the mind says, so you follow the mind. It is that which is going to give you the happiness, not me! My Truth is mine and your Truth is yours and until you find out the Truth for yourself you have to walk on the path.
Suppose you start off from home and I say that this is your home and that you need not travel anywhere; you can't accept this, you have to travel, you have to get fed up and be frustrated and come back to the same place and realise that this is the home from where you actually started. It's perfect. You have to find out for yourself. It is the mind, that is what the mind is.
