Question: What is the truth that I have to attain? Please explain it to me.
Bhagavan: What we have to attain, and what is desired by everyone, is endless happiness. Although we seek to attain it in various ways, it is [usually incorrectly looking] to something to be sought or attained as a new experience. [However] our real nature [in its purity] is the "I" feeling, which is always experienced [inwardly] by everyone. It is within us and nowhere else. Although we are always experiencing it, our minds are wandering, always seeking it [outside of us], thinking in ignorance that it is something apart from us. This is like a person saying with his own tongue that he has no tongue.
Question: If this is so, why did so many spiritual practices come to be created?
Bhagavan: The sadhanas (spiritual practices) arose only to get rid of the thought that it (the Self) is something to be newly attained. The root of the illusion is the thought that ignores the Self and thinks instead, "I am this body." Once this thought rises, it expands in no time into several thousand thoughts and conceals the Self.
