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Aptavani-1
A goldsmith would not get upset with you even if you
were to take to him an item of inferior gold content. All he
looks at is the gold itself. People have a habit of getting angry
but not the goldsmith, he simply sees the gold within. Even a
doctor gets upset with his patients asking, ‘Why have you ruined
your health?’ The goldsmith does not do that. The Gnani, just
like the goldsmith, will look at the Self only. He does not look
at the external qualities of the relative self. The phases of gold
changes, from impure, to a powder, to a liquid, to pure again,
but the gold remains as gold. Just as the focus of the goldsmith
remains only in the gold, if your focus were to remain only on
the Self within everyone, your work will be done. The goldsmith
focuses only on the gold, no matter how much impurity surrounds
it. Similarly the Gnani’s focus is only on the Chetan, the Self
within.
A person may read and assimilate the scriptures, but after
all it is only through his own understanding. People have
interpreted the scriptures in their own way. The principle of
‘jiva-ajiva’ (animate-inanimate, Self and non-self) elements is
true, but they have understood it according to their own
interpretation. Who knows what they understand to be the non-
self? How can they understand what the Self is when they do
not even understand what the non-Self is? For many, even
when the Lord was around, there was still no awareness of the
Self. The awareness was there but it was merely through words
and such awareness is prone to be forgotten or missed altogether.
There is a tremendous difference in the Self, described in words,
and the Self experienced. One may forget description written in
words, but one would never forget that which has been seen or
experienced. My Mahatmas are in the bliss of the experience of
the pure Self.
Had there not been a circumstance (sanyoga), there would
not have been the ‘samsaran marg’ (path of one’s spiritual