Ranjit Maharaj’s teaching can be found in Illusion Vs. Reality, which is now a two-volume book. Here, I offer what I consider an interpretation of central aspects of his teaching.

Preface

You must trust the Master, provided that he or she really is a Master. This is the crucial bhakti element in Ranjit’s teaching.

Pointers

1. You are mired in Ignorance (maya). Therefore, the Master says, “You are not the body, and, what’s more, the world is unreal. Know that you are the Final Reality. Know that only Final Reality is.”

2. Therefore, Knowledge comes to supplant Ignorance. You must use vichara (translated in this text as “thinking”) because believing what is false, wrong, or unreal has gotten you into this trouble in the first place. Thinking removes false thinking.

3. But you can’t hang onto Knowledge either, for Knowledge, indeed, is only a “thorn to remove a thorn.” Instead, you must realize, intuitively, that all thoughts, even Knowledge, come from Zero. Zero is incipience, the first stirring of manifestation. So, Zero is the thorn that removes the thorn of the Knowledge/Ignorance duality.

4. But what you are is beyond Zero. “If no Zero, then the ‘I’ cannot come. The Reality has nothing to do with these things [i.e., Ignorance, Knowledge, and Zero]” since “Reality is beyond Zero.”

5. So, no I, no God, no others, no world, no senses, no body, no-mind. No Ignorance, no Knowledge, no Ignorance/Knowledge, no Zero. This is Final Reality. “You are He,” yet this is not thought or said. Upshot: the highest teaching is Self-luminous Silence.