Friday evening, October 17
Question: Dear Amma, I would love to hear what you say towards something a teacher told me, which still influences me. He speaks about the horizontal — the effort we put in on a horizontal level — and the effort we put in on a vertical level.
The horizontal level is what most people perceive as the space-time reality. He calls it the ‘world reality’ — like the healing work on the psychological level and such. He says it’s very helpful for many people to work on that level, to then go deeper into the vertical level. The vertical level means coming into timelessness — into the moment. His method is to feel everything without doing anything about it — no explanations, no interference with the mind, and also no observation, which he calls dissociation.
What would you say about effort on the horizontal level? And what about this method of feeling without adding anything, to go deeper towards the Self?
AMMA: You should actually ask the teacher who said that — the one who says they know it much better — what they meant. It’s true that not everyone can come to the effortless state easily. The effort is to come to the effortlessness. When one reaches that effortless state, then it is ever vertical — straight. There is nothing more to be done; you are effortless, you know, you are there.
But the effort is to come to that effortless state of being. Without going through such things, you cannot come out of it. No one can just come out of it. Everything has to be gone through — and then you exit.
Question: And what is the right approach towards feelings — how to handle them?
AMMA: What do you mean by feelings?
Question: Like in my everyday life, when I get angry or upset or happy or joyful.
AMMA: Then you can disassociate from it. You can take a distance from it. Don’t think those feelings are me, or that they are true.
Question: For me, when I dissociate, I find a stillness, but it’s a kind of cold stillness. When I go vertical, that stillness is not cold — it feels different.
AMMA: Okay, then do that. Whatever makes you feel right — yes, that’s right.
After a short silence, Amma quipped lightly: ‘I was thinking, what is vertical, what is horizontal, and what is feeling?’ Then, with a light chuckle: ‘That was my struggle.’
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Question: I feel very fortunate to be in Tiruvannamalai at this time. But I am only here for a few short days. What would you say is the most important piece of the truth I can take back with me?
AMMA: The truth is you. It is your pure existence — that is what you are. It is the truth.
What you experience here in Tiruvannamalai — it’s all the same. You said ‘vertical,’ which is the centre , achalam, unmoving, still. That is the centre of your existence.
What we see as the relative plane — this body–mind phenomenon — is a field around it, horizontal. We call it kshetra, a field in which this energy moves — the experiential realm.
The centre is ever still and unmoving. But as long as we identify with this field, we think we are one with it. The whole process is to come out of that identity with the field and come to the centre, to Realise who you are — which is vertical, stable, and steady.
Arunachalam. Achalaswaroopam – that is the true nature of Arunachalam — Achala-manaswaroopam, the unmoving centre, stillness itself — _Hridayam_, the heart. That heart is what you are. That is the truth. So the whole spiritual process and progress happens in this field. All effort is to come out of this field and recognise the centre.
That flavour — you get it here. In this very kshetra, in this sacred field, you get the essence of that truth: your centre is unmoving, ever still, achala. Whatever happens, it is not to you. As long as you think this field is ‘me,’ there will be effort. Certain things you have to go through and come out of; certain things you have to distance yourself from — somehow.
But the whole effort is to become effortless, stable, and steady as what you are — the centre, which is ever unmoving and still. As long as we identify with this field of body–mind phenomena, there will be effort.
Question: How can you be a doer and an observer at the same time? The doer means association, and the observer means dissociation — isn’t that duality? As a _grihastha_ (householder), how can you do both together?
AMMA: As long as you are the doer, you cannot observe. But once you come to the observer — the real sakshi, the true witness — that witness is the Self. If your identity is in the Self, then even when you act, you don’t feel you are doing, because the doer has no real existence. Where your identity lies — that is what matters. Standing as the doer, you cannot observe; it is not possible.
Action can happen — but the reality of the doer, the enjoyer, the experiencer, does not exist in the Self. The Self knows no doer, even when things happen.
Question: I found out in the last weeks, am meditating, I am making progress, I am coming to Tiruvannamalai, it’s all a misunderstanding. Because what I am is not going anywhere, is not doing anything, is not making any progress. It’s all this mis-identification. It’s amazing! It is so tricky. I think, _I’m a good meditator.
AMMA: If someone says, ‘I am meditating well,’ then the meditation is not really happening. True meditation never says, ‘I am meditating.’ It may come up sometimes, by its own nature, but you can just see it and laugh, because it is not real.
That is why we say devotion is the highest. Because as long as this ‘fellow’ — the sense of doership exists, it will say something: good or bad, it says something. So we say, ‘I belong to Him.’ Whatever happens through me is His. That is devotion. If that ‘fellow’ still exists, let him belong to the Supreme Self — not to me. That is bhakti.
As long as the field of recognition and identity exists — feelings and emotions — it is better to have that bhava, that attitude of devotion. Then whatever happens through me is His wish. He is acting through me, not I. That also is devotion. Every action is happening through that power — the power is making me act. That understanding, that bhava, is true knowledge. All actions that we do are not done by a person at all.
Question: So essentially the actions never happened in the first place?
AMMA: Yes.
Question: You said the other day that when someone is in a state of samadhi if they still have a desire they are holding on to, they will come back. But if they are in samadhi, wouldn’t they realise that the actions and desires never happened in the first place? So how do they come back?
AMMA: The potential for coming back is there within. That is why I said, that samadhi has to be complete — vasanaakshaya has to be done fully. In the samadhi state, yes, they are in that same state — there is no meditator, nothing; it is only the Self. But when they come out, they have to. Until that becomes stable and steady.
Question: So they just identify again, and that’s the issue?
AMMA: Yes — they identify again. So, would you like to be vertical or horizontal? Lying — it’s a lie; falling — it’s always a fall.
Amma closed the evening by reminding everyone to remain steady at the centre — ever still, ever free.