Teaching through silence
His teaching emphasizes that words can only point to ultimate truth, but never are ultimate truth, and that intellectual understanding without directly realizing the truth through one's own investigation is not enough.
"We already are that for which we are seeking." Papaji
Ramana pointed him in the direction of his own self:
I cannot show you God or enable you to see God because God is not an object that can be seen. God is the subject. He is the seer. Don’t concern yourself with objects that can be seen. Find out who the seer is.
When telling Ramana about the story of his search of the Self;
Then he looked at me intently. I could feel that my whole body and mind were being washed with waves of purity. They were being purified by his silent gaze. I could feel him looking intently into my Heart. Under that spellbinding gaze I felt every atom of my body being purified. It was as if a new body were being created for me. A process of transformation was going on—the old body was dying, atom by atom, and a new body was being created in its place. Then, suddenly, I understood. I knew that this man who had spoken to me was, in reality, what I already was, what I had always been. There was a sudden impact of recognition as I became aware of the Self
His teaching emphasizes that words can only point to ultimate truth, but never are ultimate truth, and that intellectual understanding without directly realizing the truth through one's own investigation is not enough. Like Sri Ramana he stressed that teaching through silence was more important than teaching through words.
The process[edit]
Poonja mentions several events in his own life which "illustrate, in a general way, how the process of realisation comes about."[web 5]
- "here must be a desire for God, a love for Him, or a desire for liberation. Without that, nothing is possible."[web 5]
- "This desire for God or realisation is like an inner flame. One must kindle it and then fan it until it becomes a raging fire which consumes all one’s other desires and interests."[web 5]
- "If this inner fire rages for long enough, with sufficient intensity, it will finally consume that one, central, overwhelming desire for God or the Self."[web 5]
- The presence of the Master is the final ingredient: "When the Maharshi’s gaze met my vasana-free mind, the Self reached out and destroyed it in such a way that it could never rise or function again. Only Self remained."[web 5]
Self-enquiry[edit]
Main article: Self-enquiry
His message, like that of his teacher Sri Ramana, was always that the Self is already enlightened and free. Like Sri Ramana, he taught self-enquiry, which involved locating a person's sense of "I" and focusing on and investigating this directly.
Bhakti[edit]
Main article: Bhakti
He emphasized that there is ultimately no difference between guru and devotee, no teacher, no disciple and even no message. Poonja was quick to point out that devotional bhaktas such as Kabir, Ravidas, Sukdev and Mirabai were also awakened in the same state of freedom known as Sahaj Samadhi, which they called God.
Transmission[edit]
While a powerful transmission of awareness, presence, grace, love, bliss or shaktipat was experienced by many who met him, often dropping them directly into an experience of the Self, he would at times emphatically reject the notion of transmission.
Caplan criticises Poonja for too easily authorising students to teach:
One of the tragedies of Poonjaji's teaching ministry is that he either told, inferred, or allowed hundreds of individuals to believe they were fully enlightened simply because they'd had one, or many, powerful experiences of awakening. These "enlightened" teachers then proceeded to enlighten their own students in a similar way, and thus was born what is known as the "neo-Advaita", or "satsang" movement in western culture.[2]