Quotes from Dada Gavand

Dr. C: Are we thinking right now?

Dada: Is it a matter of thinking or just of being aware of oneself? Is there a thought process going on? I do not have any thought process. I am not working through memory. I am nowhere else but in the present.

Beyond the Mind, p. 41

Note from Freddie: The permanent loss of the mind is called manonasa in Sanskrit. It is the defining characteristic of genuine Self-realization. Compare this quotation with the following statement by Ramana Maharshi in Talks With Sri Ramana Maharshi, number 281. When asked if he had become tired while being questioned by a lawyer, he replied, "I did not use my mind and so there was no strain. Let them examine me for a thousand days. I don’t mind."

Dada: Now, how do we begin to bring about an end to this exclusive and biased mechanical thought process? Start from where you are, and begin by simply watching this activity. See what it is all about. Just watch. This watchfulness will bring about a quietude and will slow down this thought current. Then you will not be carried away so easily. The intensity of the watchful attention diminishes the flight of ideas.

Nancy: If I was without judgment, thought, desire and bias, would that bring about a discontinuance of all thoughts?

Dada: It is not so easy and automatic. As you move along, this watchfulness will broaden and intensify, gathering all the energy that the mind is now using. The more energy you have for this watchfulness, the less there will be for thought activity. See the beauty of gathering this energy in watchfulness and attention without a thought. Then that energy will move on its own.

Beyond the Mind, p. 9

Dada: This seeing and knowing one’s mind is not book-knowledge or an intellectual process. This type of understanding will expand and intensify, and you will be able to know everything about life through your own internal attention, which is intelligence. This new gate of understanding will not be opened through ideas and concepts, because the idea can never give the experience. See the difference between idea and experience. We are constantly living through concepts and imaginations. Understand the fallacy of this conceptual process which prevents us from experiencing.

The state of love is not a concept. Mind can create an idea about love, but it will never experience the quality, the state of love. We must be fre from this idea activity in order to have that experience of love; then your heart will open. Let your mind merge into the heart. It is the heart that will know.

Beyond the Mind, p. 10

Nancy: I try to have the spirit with me.

Dada: Who is that thing which tries to have? Tell me, who? Who wants that? Who is trying to have that spirit work?

Nancy: I am afraid, is it the mind?

Dada: The mind, yes. And so you shall never have it!

…So let the mind be quiet. This is not its business. On the contrary, this desiring mind has to come to an end.

Nancy: Even the desire for the spirit?

Dada: Yes, even the desire for the spirit… The mind has to see its own fallacy of desiring, and come to an end.

…The spirit cannot come into the mental machine.

Beyond the Mind, pp. 11‒13

Dada: …You will have to stop this energy dissipation and fall back on yourself to keep it within.

Nancy: I understand; you mean gather it.

Dada: Exactly. The accumulation and gathering of energy to build a reservoir within is exceedingly important.

Beyond the Mind, p. 14

So we have to work with ourselves and go directly to that core, to that center, to that root wherein lies the whole secret and mystery of life. You need not depend upon anyone, or on any book, in fact not on anything that is outside. Just be quiet into yourself. There will not be any thought to imagine or demand a thing. Simply be quiet with the total fund of energy within, and in such quietude you are going to discover something new. You will then experience what humility is, and what innocence is. The mind which is quiet into itself is innocent, humble, transparent and open to discover that which is the real.

Then you will know what meditation is. Meditation is not the chanting or singing of devotional songs, nor the repetition of any word or phrase. You will then be in a state of total surrender, alone within yourself.

You have to be really alone and anonymous to be with the inner spirit. When you are somebody, you are related to the world, you belong to the world. And as long as you are of the world, you cannot move toward the inner spirit; you will have no relationship with it. So to have a contact with the spirit, you will have to be alone, on your own. Then you will get a helping hand from within. The whole secret is to come back into yourself by gathering all your energy, and to be there in quietude and silence. To be in silence is to be near one’s own inner spirit.

To be in such silence within is the highest form of prayer. Prayer is not chanting or singing praises to someone, nor asking and begging for rewards of theother world. Desires and supplication of thought on any level are not prayers. The silence of one's own total energy in the inner domain is the true state of prayer. Such prayer finds its own reward in a very mysterious way. The innate energy, when it regains its balance and stillness, finds its own fulfillment.

Beyond the Mind, pp. 15–16

Let the imaginative process of the mind come to an end. It is only in quietude that you realize the inner spirit. So the whole secret is here — to realize the the quietude first. When you see the falsity of this mind game, you will drop it and not get carried away by it. The negation of this activity will bring about the quietude.

Disquietude is nothing but ceaseless thought activity. We try to quieten one thought with another idea, which then becomes a fight between two opposing thoughts. This way we remain in the same field of mind. This creates seeking, which is nothing but a struggle and conflict.

Beyond the Mind, p. 17

Dada: You have to discover that state of existence in which there will be no problems. To bring about this dimensional change is the challenge of life.

Nancy: I did not really see it clearly before as a new dimension, as something separate, an entirely different quality.

Dada: The very quality of that energy is different, and we need that new energy for our existence.

Beyond the Mind, p. 19

When energy becomes sensitive, highly volatile and effervescent, it transcends the idea/emotion level of the mind. Mind becomes the mindless. This mindless energy is dynamic, virtuous and holy. It is pure and transparent to reflect the will and glory of the divine. With humility the energy becomes capable of meeting every moment and event of relationship intuitively, without the thought process of mind.

This sensitive and humble energy becomes free from all ideas, desires and rigid mechanical drives born out of the past. The cumulative effect of the whole past is the image of “I,” the mind which seeks the spirit. Elimination of this past is the fredom from the mind, who is the seeker. Thereafter all seeking comes to an end, as the seeker himself is dissolved.

Beyond the Mind, p. 20

Note from Freddie: “The seeker himself is dissolved.” This is manonasa, “loss of the mind,” the defining characteristic of Self-realization.