“A Vedantic teacher was once approached by a mahatma one afternoon,” said Sri Gurudev, “asking him with all reverence, ‘Explain to me, sir, the nature of the Self.’”
“The great master looked at the young monk, winked at him and said, ‘I will tell you all about it when there is no one here.’
“After a time, the anxious and sincere mahatma reached the teacher and reminded him, ‘Now there is nobody here, sir. Please instruct me.’ The Vedantic teacher did not open his eyes, nor did he reply. The mahatma waited for some time, and thinking that perhaps the teacher had not heard, repeated the request.
“The Vedantic saint smiled and said, ‘Not now. Let everyone go away.’
’Sir, everyone has gone; there is nobody here. I am alone here,’ asserted the student.
‘So long as you are here,’ snap came the answer, ‘how can I tell the Truth?’
“Where the ego has ended, and the clamour of all thoughts has been entirely hushed up, in that ‘living-silence’ is the self realised,” concluded Sri Gurudev. I was immature then. From immaturity springs all the audacity of fools. So I asked, “Sir, who is it in the mahatma that knows that there is nobody there?”
Like lightning came the reply: “That, even the wisest do not know.” The vigour and suddenness of the reply then satisfied me. Only now I realise the wisdom of the ready reply. The Self is never an object for anyone’s intellectual appreciation as knowledge.

“That from which speech and mind return, unable to reach or apprehend — that is the supreme state of the Self.”

Reminiscences of Swami Chinmayananda
As my thoughts wander away to Tapovan Kuti on the Ganges banks in Uttarkasi and to the period when I was doing my sadhana there, many remarkable anecdotes of Sri Gurudev (Swami Tapovanam) explode in my recollections.
I don’t exactly remember the specific occasions that brought up these live examples from him, but each one of them was a glorious answer to some question, or a blazing explanation of some moot point in higher Vedanta.
Once upon a time, described Sri Gurudev, a secular tyrant made a Mahapurusha hang from the branch of a tree by his teeth. Down below flowed the noisy Ganga, smashing her way through a bed of large rocks. At that time a seeker asked, “Sir! Tell me the nature of the Infinite Self.” If the Mahapurusha opened his mouth either to assert or to negate the Self, he would dash himself into the rocky floods; if he remained silent, the student would be neglected, which was against the Mahatma’s sole duty in life. How would he express?
“It is then,” concluded Sri Tapovanam “perhaps, that the Master showed the student the jnana mudra, meaning that the Self is not to be discussed. It is to be realised by oneself in the silence within.” Both assertion and negation are functions of the intellect. Beyond them both is the transcendental Self, the seat of pure Consciousness.

Extremely lonely and awe inspiring time and place. There was no human sound anywhere, nay, not even the sound of a bird. That day we saw neither traders nor pilgrims on the way. By 10 o’clock we crossed that very vast and awe-inspiring Gauri Guha Maidan and as we had to ascend and descend a small ghat in the Mandhatru mountain, we set ourselves to ascend slowly. There, from a distance, a man was coming towards us fast from his tent situated in the mountain valley. Within 5 or 10 minutes, he approached us and it was clear from his appearance that he was a thief. He came straight towards me and quickly caught hold of my rudraksha mala and turned it this way and that way. Then, putting his hand in my pocket, he said something in his language. Without the least fear, indifferently, I said in Hindi, “We are the lamas of Kashi. What do you want? You want my rudraksha mala? If you do, take it.” Saying thus with great seriousness, I held the mala in front of him. But without touching it and with a shame-faced smile, he moved a few steps away.

Holding him by the hand, I asked him lovingly how far Manasa was from that place and other details. He also walked with us for some distance and said in the same loving tone that the Manasarovar was on the other side of the pass and that we could see it in a short time from the top of the pass. After that, he went back from where he came.

From the standpoint of the substratum, even the thief is Brahman alone. He is also of the nature of Bliss. But from the standpoint of name and form, he is an evil creature, capable of giving us sorrow…

Divine qualities like dispassion, non-possessiveness, fearlessness, non-violence, cheerfulness, self-discipline, love, forbearance, withdrawal from the world of objects are very useful indeed to detach ourselves from the unreal. By the grace of the Lord, practising this glorious brahma bhavana continuously and constantly, with the resultant increase of dispassion etc. day by day, what have I to fear or suffer from thieves?