Aptavani-8
107
already been filled with the right amount of petrol (fuel), so it will
carry on working, and you will not have to put any more fuel
into it; you will not have to do anything. You have to keep seeing
this mechanical (thing). To See and to Know is the nature
(swabhav) of the Atma.
Questioner: Do we not have to do anything?
Dadashri: You do not have to do a thing. Wherever you
have to do anything, that itself is mechanical atma!
That is why people keep chasing after the mechanical
atma. They even proclaim, ‘This is the Atma! Who else, other
than the Atma can do all this?’ That is what they know. This is
all really happening because of the presence of the Atma, and
its own real guna (properties; qualities; traits) remain in their
own nature (swabhav). But because of the wrong belief, a non-
Self complex (prakruti) with different properties (vyatirek guna)
has arisen, and everything is then run by the prakruti! But the
wrong belief stays the same; ‘I am this, and I am that.’ A person
has no concept of the real thing. That is because from birth, he
receives those kinds of impressions (sanskar). First they call
him a baby, then he is given a name. Once the name is given,
it is with that name that he becomes known as nephew, paternal
uncle, maternal uncle, and this is how all impressions of terrible
ignorance (agnanta) are instilled.
The worldly life (sansar) means to plunge deeper and
deeper into ignorance (agnanta). If a person were a Gnani in
his past life, even he would hear the echoes of ignorance
(agnanta), again in this life. But when the karma unfolds again,
he would regain awareness (jagruti). But the very rule of this
worldly life is that people will fit a person with wrong belief.
If a man is not married, we may ask him, ‘Do you have a
wife?’ and he would say, ‘No. I have not been married.’ But when
he marries, he then becomes a husband. When the wife dies, he