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method of renouncing it? There is no way or method of giving up, renouncing or offering the 'I', because whatever can be done ultimately proves to be life-giving for the 'I'. By action, by deeds or by resolve no one has ever gone out of the 'I' or can go out of it: because the resolve itself is 'I' in a small form. Resolve is the unripe form of 'I'. After ripening, it is transformed into 'I'. 'I' is the consolidated state of a resolve. Therefore, how could 'I' be given up with the help of resolve? And what are our attempts? Our offerings? Are they not all extensions of resolve?
Attempts at freedom from the 'I' by the 'I' itself are as foolish as trying to lift oneself up by catching hold of the laces of one's shoes. In fact, the 'I' cannot be given up; because if that exists, whatever else is there does not exist, could not exist; and if that does not exist, it does not; and then the question of its non-existence does not arise. Therefore, it is proper that the 'I' should be known. I say: not by surrender but by knowledge; not by meditation but by knowledge; not by renunciation but by knowledge; and the wonder of wonders is that when through application or surrender it gets nourished, by knowledge it cannot be found at all!
To know the 'I' in its perfection is to become free from it.
'I' cannot be given up because in reality it does not exist; and falsehoods have to be invented in vain to surrender what is not there.
'I' is an untruth. With a view to giving it up, another untruth of 'surrender' has to be invented and then to support the untruth of 'surrender' another untruth of 'God' has to be created in imagination; but from such untruths there is no salvation. On the other hand, bigger untruths are released.
There was a beggar. He found an orphan boy by the road side. That beggar brought him up and brought him to age. There was a graveyard just behind the beggar's hut; and that child was very naughty. Therefore, he would move away to graveyard by day or by night. To ensure that he did not go to the graveyard, the beggar told him. "Do not go there in the darkness. Ghosts reside there and they eat up men." Naturally, from that
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