feelings, unless the heart is pure and naked, God, Who is your innermost Self, can not reveal Himself. Is this clear?"

Malcolm asked, "What about repressions?" Baba replied, "Do not ask this now."

"God is your innermost Self. That means that behind this limited body, you have within you energy and mind, with both its functions. You as you—the ego—are also there. Behind all this, imagine God as infinite in space. Try to grasp what this means. You have this idea of yourself as body; you feel happy, depressed, hungry. You, you, you. This you think to be yourself; but behind this you, there is something that can not be got rid of, even if the body is not there. If both your hands or both your legs were to be cut off, you would still exist as you. That means that you are not this body. In sound sleep, you are unconscious of your body, but you still exist; so you are not this body. Who then is this you? This you is your innermost Self. We must find, in our own self, this important 'I.'

“Who am I? I have said that I am not this body. Then who am I? I might be energy; but when I do not move, do not act—when I am unconscious—energy does not manifest itself; yet I still exist. So I am not energy.

"I might be mind. But the same applies here. When I am unconscious, in sound sleep, and the mind is still, the mind is not functioning, but I still exist; so I am also not mind. Then who am I? Try to grasp this. Let us try to understand what can not be understood. I am that which is not body, not energy, not mind.

"In sound sleep, what do you experience? Nothing. That is you. I will now tell you something that is not said, that is not written, that must not be said, but I say it. I am sound sleep. Why? If I am not body, energy, mind, then I am that which has no body, energy, mind; and only sound sleep means that. Only sound sleep answers the question. In sound sleep you are not body, not energy, not mind, and yet the body is there, energy is there, mind is there. Only the consciousness of body, of energy, of mind is not there.

"I will now go to the first point and return to this later. The original state of the beginningless Beginning was the infinite sound-sleep state of the Infinite One. In the beginningless Beginning, when there was no creation, no universe—not even nothing— there was only the state of 'was.'