Own Effort is Important

 

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Own Effort is Important

Nobody can give anyone the ‘truth’. If anyone says he is capable of giving it, we can be certain that the person is lying. No one has the capacity to give the truth. This is no comment on the capacity of the giver, it only shows that truth is a living thing. It is not an inanimate object that can be given or taken away. It is a living experience one must obtain by oneself.

Whatever is achieved in the world of the Self is only achieved through self-effort. In the world of the soul, no debt, no borrowing, no depending on others is possible. Nobody can walk there on borrowed legs. There is no refuge there apart from one’s self. To attain to Truth, we must be our own refuge. This is the inescapable condition.

We listen to discourses of various Master, we absorb their teachings in the form of words, sometimes we also feel the energy in the words. When Swamiji is rendering his discourse, most of us fall asleep, or go into a trance, as His soothing voice nourishes our soul. Only words can be communicated, and words do not have any life – and the truth always remains behind the words, hidden! We have been listening to words over several births, and these words have kept forming layer upon layer of dust on our soul, birth after birth.

Words are dead things; they are not the truth. Nobody’s words are the truth – they can show you the path leading to the truth, but the words themselves are not the truth. We cannot carry the burden of these words and find the truth. We need to become empty, light, shed the weight of these words, if we have to realise the truth. Just as a climber must lay down his pack before scaling a mountain to seek the heights, one who has embarked on the journey to truth had better lay down the burden of words. Only a consciousness free of words is able to attain the lofty heights of truth.

Those who have known the truth do not open their mouths at all. Their lips are sealed. Not a word is to be heard from them. Aren’t they saying enough this way? Aren’t they suggesting that truth lies in silence, that silence itself is truth? But we are unable to understand their language.

We cannot understand anything without words. Our understanding is limited to words and so the Masters speak to us through the medium of words. They tell us in words about that which cannot be communicated in words. It is their compassion that leads them to attempt this impossible feat, and because of our ignorance we try to catch hold of their every word. Words coupled with ignorance form a sect – and once again we are deprived of truth and true religion is as distant from us as ever.

We must rise above words. Only then will we know what is behind the words. Words only fill our memories. Knowledge does not come from them. And please don’t mistake memory for knowledge. Know once and for all that memory is nothing more than a record of the past. It is learning, not knowledge.