How to avoid misery?

About ten days after my arrival I [Annamalai Swami] asked Bhagavan, "How to avoid misery?"

This was the first spiritual question I had ever asked him.

Bhagavan replied, "Know and always hold onto the Self. Disregard the body and the mind. To identify with them is misery. Dive deep into the Heart, the source of being and peace, and establish yourself there."

I then asked him how I could attain Self-realisation and he gave me a similar answer: "If you give up identifying with the body and meditate on the Self, which you already are, you can attain Self-realisation."

As I was pondering these remarks Bhagavan surprised me by saying, "I was waiting for you. I was wondering when you would come."

As a newcomer I was still too afraid of him to follow this up by asking him how he knew, or how long he had been waiting. However, I was delighted to hear him speak like this because it seemed to indicate that it was my destiny to stay with him.

A few days later I asked another question: "Scientists have invented and produced aircraft which can traval at great speeds in the sky. Why do you not make and give us a spiritual aircraft in which we can quickly and easily cross over the sea of samsara?"

Samsara is the seemingly endless cycle of birth and death through different incarnations. It can also be taken to mean worldly illusion or entanglement in wordly affairs.

"The path of self-enquiry," replied Bhagavan, "is the aircraft you need. It is direct, fast, and easy to use. You are already travelling very quickly towards realisation. It is only because of your mind that it seems that there is no movement. In the old days, when people first rode on trains, some of them believed that the trees and the countryside were moving and that the train was standing still. It is the same with you now. Your mind is making you believe that you are not moving toward Self-realisation."

~ from Living by the Words of Bhagavan by David Godman