BOOKS BY ANANTA Welcome to Satsang with Ananta

What is Here Now is always more than enough. This is surrender. You can’t make a picture about it; you can’t make a concept about it. That which Is, this Is-ness; it’s more than enough … taking care of ‘What Is’. So, the company of the Truth, which is the definition of the Satsang (Sat ka Sang: company of the Truth) is to remain with That which Is: this is the Truth.

That Truth which cannot be visualized, which you cannot experience as a perception and cannot be conceptualized or intellectualized … That already is Here.

It is Here before you even try to experience it. Your trying comes later. [Chuckles] You are not even trying to Be; You are just Being. So, this is prior even to Being and not-Being … and yet not separate from Being. So, whether you are just trying or you are like this [Makes a posture of being tired] just giving up, whether ‘I want to experience it now; the Truth!’ or ‘I can’t do it, I give up’ … before any of these postures, It just Is. And this is very freeing, but to the mind can be very frustrating also.

Actually, this is your ultimate freedom that You just are It.

Suppose you spent your entire life trying to get into heaven or something and then you got to know that This is already It. [Laughs, looks around] That’s exactly the reaction … [Laughter] that ‘This can’t be it’. So, if we have an idea about it, then that is not It. No idea can represent It, no painting, no visual, no picture can represent It, no experience represents It … and yet all of them are also It. So, when we say ‘It does not represent It’ that means it cannot fully represent It or accurately represent It; just like a fingernail cannot represent the entire body or the reflection in the mirror is not the actuality of the object … and yet, it is It (in a way).

What other attempt can you make? You can’t visualize It, you can’t think It up, you can’t solve It, you can’t perceive It and yet, everything that you visualize, imagine, think, perceive is also It. Then what? [Chuckles]

And It is You. You can say ‘It’ but even the saying of ‘It’ can seem like there is some separation there … but It is You. What other type of effort can you make?

Q: Seek.

A: Seek … but seeking the experience of It or the perception of It; like seeking the what of It? Like It, when It comes, when the seeking is over, will It appear? Will It be solved? Will you have the ultimate concept of It? Like, what are we seeking of It? And besides these means, what are our means of seeking?

Q: I would like to experience peace of mind all the time.

A: Experience the peace of mind all the time. And what is the opposite of the peace of mind?

Q: Restlessness.

A: What is the usual route of restlessness?

Q: Identity.

A: Identity mixed with wanting, desire. [Chuckles] So, ‘I want peace of mind’ is also not peace of mind. I’m saying: peace of mind is naturally Here. When you say ‘I want peace of mind’ it seems to be gone. But now? [Laughs] The idea that ‘It will go away, or it doesn’t stay’. And we were talking about this also: How can we know any of this, that it will go? ‘Because it has happened.’ [Chuckles] How can we really confirm that any of that is True or valid? We can’t really say. It is our certainties which really keep us trapped in a way.

The One that is Here, has something ever happened to it before?

Q: No.

A: [Chuckles] Then?

So, you want to solve it for the mythical one?

[Silence]

Yesterday we were talking about a chameleon and what changes the colors of a chameleon once it’s in a different environment. Is it thinking about it? ‘Okay, I’m on green grass. Let me turn green.’ [Chuckles] ‘I know this is the color green. Come on green. Not blue; green. Come on.’

The bird is flying in the winter towards the north. As it is flying away, is it saying ‘I hope I’m flying north, I hope I’m flying north. Hope this is not west. I said north, north, I tell you.’?

But somehow, we feel that unless we hold these ideas, that we decide that ‘This is it, this true, this is untrue, this is right, this is wrong, this is how I should be, this is how I should not be’ that we feel like this life cannot function. If your heart had to stop, what notion could you have that will keep it pumping? (Let’s say kidneys.) But something is functioning on its own, in a very beautiful way. And it continues, unsupported by and uninterrupted by our concepts of what should be and what should not be.

Someone was saying the other day that ‘Ananta, how many times do we have to go through this roller coaster? Because we see clearly; and then something seems to come back and that seems real; and then we see clearly that nothing has ever happened.’ You see, these kinds of things. ‘How many times up and down?’ So, I said ‘This complaint (‘How many times does this up and down have to happen?’) is also part of the same roller coaster. In a way, it is part of same unfolding.

Sometimes it looks like you are trying to solve it. And it’s okay to try and solve it because a tired intellect is very auspicious for Satsang; when you are tired of the how’s, the why’s, the when’s, what’s, the who’s.

‘Who am I?’ is very good, of course. [Chuckles] (It doesn’t need my endorsement.) Because your discovery, your recognition, … you will never be able to put that into an answer. You will never be able to capture it with your intellect; never be able to (in a way) understand it … because what we call understanding usually means that we feel like we have a valid concept about it … ‘That is my understanding of it’.

So, as this intellect gets tired of ‘why, why, why, why, why’ and you never find a valid answer for this ‘why’ … (We get some placebos from time to time. ‘You take this medicine; you will be fine. You feel like ‘Ahh…’ [relief] …) but there is no real ‘why’.

Just like there is no real ‘when’.

Just like there is no real ‘who’.

Without any version of truth, without any should or should not, is there naturally a distinction present? Is duality originally inherent in this?

Whether eyes are open or eyes are closed, without the label ‘appearance’ and ‘reality’ is there such a dichotomy? Even in the labels ‘real’ and ‘unreal’?

Duality is suffering.

[Sri Nisargadatta] Maharaj said something very beautiful. He said ‘You are not experiencing suffering; you are suffering your experiencing.’

I would like to take further and say:

You are not experiencing duality; we are interpreting it as dual.

You are not experiencing distinction; we are judging it to be separate.

You are not even experiencing time and space.

It is just a judgment you are making.

It is a conclusion.

We are not experiencing a ‘me’ and ‘another.’

It is only a conclusion, a notion.

We are not experiencing a body and a world.

You are judging your experiences to be ‘body’ and ‘the world.’

You are experiencing, but you are labeling that as ‘body’ and ‘outside the body.’

But where is the space of experiencing?

Have you ever experienced anything outside of you?

See, but even these statements can be used to make distinctions.

Q: Something’s coming up for me just in the drama of life. Now what’s shaking is this identification with being good. Because there was kind of a situation where I (the ‘me’) did something and it was misunderstood to be bad. It came from the heart, it came from compassion and it was misunderstood. And then tracing it back, it comes back to this huge identification with being good because if I didn’t believe I was good then that wouldn’t affect me in the slightest. I see that, but there is still something shaking; it’s not quite clear. I don’t feel like I’m quite in free flow because although I can see it’s a lie that ‘I’m good’ but there is something saying that ‘You are good. Don’t work on it.’ [Laughter] It’s like you were saying yesterday about don’t go to the other opposite like ‘Okay, I can be bad now.’

A: This is the thing.

Q: But there is a lot, and lot of energy behind it; that shaking. And although I am seeing partially, I’m not … Can you clear this a little for me?

A: The thing is that this is true for either position. I know more prevalent is identification with being good but sometimes …, have any of you seen these gangster movies? [Laughs] The young man comes and he is trying to become a main man, he is trying to become a gangster, he is trying to become part of the Mafia. So, his whole attempt is to show that he is bad. And any time the impression goes to the bosses that he is being good, it’s a bad thing. They don’t want to identify as being good. Good at being bad is good [Chuckles] for them. And that is the image. We were talking about images. This is the image they hold onto, that only after they are considered bad enough, they get part of the ranks of the Mafia.

So, it is not that it is only on one side of the equation. And that is why I was saying that once you see that one side is not true, don’t attach to the opposite. What does that mean? Nothing. In the sense that if you are not good does not mean that you are bad; you are bad doesn’t mean that you are good. These are just inferences from the mind. You are beyond bad and good. These don’t apply to Your Reality because (it might sound strange to say but) everything is inherently just an expression of Consciousness. But how we label it…

And you’ve seen culturally in some areas of the world how some thing is good but in other areas of the world (in some cultures) the exact same thing would be bad. And people are very clear: ‘No, it is bad’ or ‘It is good’. So, these are just attributes that we give, using the mind, that ‘If I am this way, then it is good. If I am that way, then it is bad’.

Now, why I keep saying ‘Don’t go to the opposite’ is because otherwise we rest in the opposite position saying ‘Now I can just be bad. I can just be rude to everyone who speaks to me’. And that becomes a new position. Most of us, as children, are conditioned with this sort of ‘You have to be good, you have to speak nicely, you have to be vigilant towards other’s feelings’(this kind of thing) … then go to the opposite saying ‘I just don’t care anymore’. And many times, this is also labeled under ‘I’m just going to be myself!’ [Chuckles] It has nothing to do with the Self; Self.  It’s just switching one image, because some pain came with that image, and then we felt like it is worthwhile to drop that by trying to construct a new image which we feel will not be as painful. But because all imagery is ultimately not true about You, it is going to be painful. In the design of this play it seems that it is designed in a way that no lie lasts forever and it starts to become painful. Like I was saying the other day: The potato keeps on getting hotter and hotter and hotter, till you drop it’ (the potato of this identity, no matter what the attributes of this identity are).

So, I’m very happy to hear you speak like this and say that there is an impulse to try and own the opposite of that, but you see that ‘Yes, this is what is being shared in Satsang; it’s neither this nor that’. And that can feel like limbo or wobbly for a bit. ‘What do I rest on? So, what is it? Am I good or bad?’

So, when I say it is not applicable, I’m not making a conclusion of what you must try to be. I’m not saying that you must try to be good or bad or even neutral. Just see that none of this applies to our Reality. None of this really applies. It only applies to identity.

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote this very interesting book called ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ and many, many misunderstood that; again in the same way as Satsang can be misunderstood. It felt like ‘Oh, we must then own our bad side’ or something like that. But that’s not what he was saying even in the book (the little bit of whatever I have read). He was saying something similar, that these labels are now extinct. These labels are extinct. He was kind of hoping that humanity has crossed that traditional idea of labeling ourselves like this or like that. But I don’t feel like we have, even now (although it must be about 100 years ago; 50-60 years ago).

So, if we never had this condition about good and bad, then the mind can give you this fear that ‘I can just be really bad’. When I used to visit Ramesh, one of the most common questions that used to come to him was … because he would just say that ‘You are not the doer. Everything happens through God’s will’. This was also often misunderstood because the question he would get is ‘Does that mean that I can just go around shooting everybody?’ or ‘Does that mean that I can just lay in bed all day?’ But what he was saying was not heard then. [Chuckles]

Everything that happens is God’s will and when you say ‘I can go around shooting people’ who are you referring to yourself as then?

So, it’s kind of (I was going to say ‘dangerous’ but not really dangerous) very unfathomable to the mind, what is being spoken. Like Guruji [Sri Mooji] says, this ‘mind-bypass’ is that something is still being heard without it being understood by the mind. [Chuckles] Because the mind is saying ‘What is this? Should I be good or bad?’ and when you hear ‘neither’ or ‘both’ or ‘not applicable’ the mind can’t do anything with that. Although it might try to own that concept ‘Yes, I am neither’ or ‘I am both’…  it might try to own that, but it has nothing, I mean there are no legs to stand on, with this kind of thing. Because it will keep saying ‘Okay, fine, then now what should I do?’ Or ‘How should I be?’ as if it was still up to it; still trying to get ownership of that.

Now the funny thing is, if I say ‘Don’t be good, don’t be bad and don’t be empty’ [Laughter] …

because I know the latest position now in Satsang must be ‘I just have to be empty; I must just be empty’. But ‘empty’ is not trying to be empty.

What is left to say now? [Laughs] It’s like Guruji talks about trying to be natural. The minute you try to be natural, the natural-ness is gone. ‘Just be natural now!’ [Makes a funny pose to trying to act natural. Laughs] It’s not a position. So, once you make it into a position…, like emptiness can also be made into a position.

Q: What I’m feeling now is just heat. It’s not a flip -lop thing. Now it’s just a sense of heat. [Laughter]

A: When this kitchen becomes too hot, you must stay in it. [Laughter] Usually in America, they say it the other way, no? ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen’. But this kitchen, when it becomes too hot, you stay in it. [Laughter]

Q: Bake that potato.

A: The other day, we were reading a book (was it ‘Letters from the Swampland’?) where the Sage was saying: ‘Neither this nor that, no position; not even ‘empty’ as a position. Emptiness is emptiness itself. Empty is empty of even itself.’

This kind of thing seems very strange for the mind and we want to run. He said something very beautiful; he said ‘Because we are so used to resting in this nest of intellect, when you are being pushed beyond your intellect it can seem like ‘But this is too strange, too crazy’ or something, but this is the most auspicious’ … where you’re left without a conclusion, without a resisting place for your limited idea of yourself … all conclusions, even conclusions about emptiness, or silence … and especially also cause and effect. [Silence]

Why especially cause and effect? Because we still make a conclusion about our inner openness and attaching to how our ‘coconut’ [body, identity, idea of separateness] seems to operate in the world. ‘If I’m so empty, then this can’t happen…’ (the same thing) ‘…then I’ll just lay in bed all day’ or something like that. These kinds of ideas. [Silence]

The bad news is that if you were to try and be empty of even being empty, you would still not be empty. You would still be trying to be empty of being empty. So, that is the bad news.

But the BEST news is that: naturally, all This is Here.

This is the best thing … that in THIS very moment, you’re empty of even trying to be empty.

If this clinging is not there, if this conceptual grasping is not there, then actually, we do not need to add any more words.

Most of Satsang is just in response to what clinging, what idea, you are holding onto. It’s almost like you’re falling into God but sometimes along the way, you grasp onto some idea, which could even be a spiritual idea; even the idea ‘I am falling into God.’

That’s why I said that not much is needed to be said because these are also attractive-sounding notions, so you can hold onto that. Most of the words in Satsang are just to push you off these notions.

Allow you to fall into yourself … rather than get struck in any image you might be creating about yourself.

Suffering is nothing but an attack on this image that you make about yourself. If you have no image about yourself, you cannot suffer. If you have no notion, no boundary, no idea about yourself, then what could be attacked?

Even our ideas of how the world should be are based on the idea that ‘I am an object in this world.’

A: You are not well? Pain is still there? Are you doing physiotherapy now? No.

S: Only exercise.

A: Only exercise; accha. [Okay, I see]

S: Acupuncture has started.

A: Acupuncture, I see.

Satsang is also a type of acupuncture; bursting the balloons of any idea you have about yourself. [Chuckles] But acupuncture is less painful at times than Satsang.

In a way, a spiritual seeker is one who has got a thousand concepts about how to be notionless and how to be empty of ego, empty of the limited self, but hardly remains notionless. [Smiles] A library full of beautiful pointers. However, very little tasting.

So, to go from this seeker identity who is a collecting beautiful spiritual ideas to actually experiencing this freedom just takes one moment. It is just this moment … where all identity is naturally gone anyway.

So, you can hand back your library card now. You don’t need to borrow anymore concepts from anywhere. Does anyone still feel like they don’t have enough spiritual concepts; they need more? [Smiles] Need more?

Actually, one or two pointers are enough for anyone.

So, now is the easy part. But for the mind, it is the most difficult part. Use it, whatever pointer you have which appeals the most to you, use it. Don’t think more and more about it. You will not come to some perfect conclusion that way. You will not compute your way to the truth. If you mix pointer A plus pointer B minus pointer C divided by pointer D, you will not come to the final equation in that way. [Chuckles] There is enough beautiful pointings from the Sages that we have. You no longer need to employ your intellect too much. Just whatever the pointer asks you to; that much is enough.

‘All things are perfectly resolved in the Unborn’ is a beautiful pointer also because it takes care of it all. It is ‘Guru Kripa Kevalam’ [All is the will of Guru, God, Consciousness] and tells you what to do: remain in the Unborn.

Now what is born? Reality is unchaining, so it is not born and it is not subjected to birth and death. So, what is born is only the notional idea, the egoist idea of self, the idea of the ‘limited self.’ Now, if it was impossible to remain in the Unborn, why would Master Bankei trouble us in this way? He would say ‘All things are perfectly resolved in the Unborn, but you cannot remain in the unborn, so there is no point.’ It is not like that. Nobody is that pregnant that you have to give birth to this one.

Sometimes we play this game: Remain in your notion-less-ness … but if you have to buy some concept, expose it. And while you expose it, you see the ridiculous nature of these concepts. Sometimes when you just keep playing mentally with them, they just feel so strong and alive. Once they escape your mouth, you’re like ’What? This is what seems so strong inside?’

So, taste yourself. Don’t conceptualize so much. Don’t intellectualize so much.

If it was in the figuring out, if it was a mental process, somebody would have figured it by now. There would be treaties on it, saying ‘I started with step A and ended with step G and that is it. Just think this, then think that, then think this, then multiply everything, you got it.’ But what is beyond all this intellect?

People travel far to experience one moment of being empty of this. They go to a beautiful mountain. What happens in that moment? There is a perception of something which the mind cannot immediately interpret. It is just out of moves for a moment and you experience peace. ‘Ahh…’ But usually in the world, that peace lasts for what two seconds before you say ‘I have to take a selfie with this mountain [Chuckles] for when I get back. How can I capture it, how can I own it, how can I send it to my friends?’ You see, all of this stuff.

Now, when you encounter yourself without attributes, without qualities, the good thing is that you cannot take a selfie with it. It has no attributes, no qualities. But for the mind, that is very confusing. It’s like ‘But I’m finding nothing. I’m finding nothing.’ The ‘I’ that is finding this nothing (which is beyond even ‘nothing and something’) is without all qualities … and yet, all qualities emerge from It.

This has to be tasted and not just conceptualized. Because it [the mind] is very fancy. It will say ‘Oh, It Itself has no qualities. Yet, all qualities come from That. That’s nice! Let me add that to my list.’

But this is Your experience Now?

Or not?

Or are these going to continue to be just borrowed words?

Even in Satsang sometimes, all that we are doing is waiting for confirmation of an existent belief system. Suppose you come to Satsang everyday and all you heard was everything contradicting what you believed. You’d say ‘I don’t like this. This does not seem like a good Satsang. Today Ananta is contradicting everything he only told me.’ [Smiles] But truly, the attempt is to not to create a solid belief system, a framework of concepts which seems to be very Advaita, but to take you beyond this, beyond the idea that you can capture the truth in a mental way. And we’ve been talking about these things. We cannot even capture the phenomenal aspect in a phenomenal way … not one moment, in a mental way. You cannot capture one moment of even the appearance of phenomena. There is no concept which can describe this, even this meeting. And we use these broad strokes then. ‘There is Satsang with twenty people.’ Is that what this is? But we live in this way. ‘What did you do this morning?’ … ‘Oh, I went to Satsang and it was nice. There were twenty people.’ You see, this kind of thing. It’s okay, conversationally. But you know what I’m getting at, that it does not capture this.

Life is actually much broader than our mind can just capture.

In a way, it’s like, you know, in our time we used to have these phone directories. Some of the younger ones, my children, have never seen a phone directory. [Smiles] But is the city just a phone directory, a list of the people and their addresses? Our mind’s version is like that; just all the labels. But the truth is un-label-able. (I have some practice in saying that word; what do you say?) [Chuckles] The truth is un-label-able.

Sanga: Un-label-able.

A: When you’re happy in front of that mountain, is it because you know the name of the mountain or because you know it is a mountain? When you see a newborn baby, is the joy because you know the name of the baby? [Smiles] Is the Presence that you experience in Satsang dependent on the words of Satsang, the language which is been spoken? It is independent.

For years, we’ve looked at the validity of our conclusions. We looked at the validity of all our conclusions, then we said ‘They just don’t create; they just don’t have any tangibility.’ If at the end of this life, you were told on your deathbed ‘Actually, you were right’ [Chuckles] is that all you want? … at the end, to have an affirmation that you were right? But we seem to live our life in this way. And all that remains for all of us in Satsang is usually followed by a ‘But…, but I’m right about this; but I’m right about this’ hoping that that concept somewhere represents truth … even after hearing over and over that it cannot and checking repeatedly (not just hearing, but checking for yourself).

What can’t you do … what can’t you do without being right about? (Is that sentence correct? ‘What can’t you do without being right about?’ Is it correct English? Sometimes I’m hearing the words coming out.) [Chuckles]

What do you HAVE to be right about? Simply… [Smiles] You just HAVE to be right about this.

If the ‘seeker’ is the predominant identity now, you will find that there will be these spiritual concepts, Satsang concepts. Those thorns, which were meant to remove other thorns and to be thrown away, themselves are the embedded thorns which are to be removed; for many of us.

It’s our version of the spiritual truth. And if you look at any of these versions, you feel like ‘These are so special, these are so cool’ but actually, when you go back in history you find that these are the same spiritual debates which have been happening for thousands of years. There is no big deal in any of them. Whether Maya is unreal or real. Whether this is the play of Consciousnesses or it never existed. Whether both ‘Self’ and ‘person’ are real or only ‘Self’ is real. Whether ‘person’ is real aspect of ‘Self’ or it has no existence of whatsoever. There is no big deal in any of these positions and none of these represent any Truth in Reality.

The idea is not to become a ‘pandit’ [Smiles] who know so much, but tastes very little. That’s why The Ribhu Gita is a beautiful scripture because it deconstructs all spiritual and non-spiritual ideas. It says ‘You are beyond the duality of even the statement ‘I am Brahman’ … beyond the duality of even the statement ‘I am Brahman’. [Smiles] Because even in that assertion there is duality; the possibility that you could not be and therefore, an affirmation is needed (as inherent in any assertion).

Like I was saying ‘Nobody goes around saying, asserting, that ‘I have a mouth.’ Is there a possibility that you couldn’t? [Smiles]

Reality is independent of your idea about it, your assertions or denials about it. Empty of labels you are empty of distinctions.

[Reading from the chat]: “For me, subconscious means that which I repress; repress in the waking state, mostly desires and fears.”

It’s okay. However you want to use the terms actually is fine; it’s no trouble. But just don’t make too many side projects, like ‘I must now work on my subconscious nature’ or something like that.

The beauty of this simple, straight-forward, natural sahaja way of remaining in our notionless existence is that all the clean-up that needs to happen apparently is also taken care of.

There is no actual thing like the world. There is no actual thing like the world, the body, the mind; even Consciousness, Awareness … there is no actual thing like that. It’s just that we take from our existence, we make certain boundaries and say ‘This is a world, this certain a set of sensations, this is a body.’ Visual perceptions and certain sensations we label them together in a basket and say ‘This is a body’.

Then for another set of energy-constructs which carry this language and meaning, we say ‘This is mind.’ Mind is a bundle of thoughts, like Bhagavan [Sri Ramana Maharshi] said. And then, for the very Presence of Existence, we say ‘This is Being’. Different sensations we call emotions and say ‘This is anger, this is fear this is joy.’ But the terms are not inherent in the sensations or the perception of them. These are just terms we use for communication. There is no distinction ever between anything in Reality.

Q: You were talking about the stage and the actor is coming in there. There comes a point when one of the actors starts taking the center stage and starts making so much noise that entire attention shifts to that actor. In the moment of anger or fear, frequently we are able to observe that this is taking over but sometimes it goes beyond our control and only later on we get to recognize it. How can we handle that situation?

A: So, this is what we are discussing: anger comes. Whenever fear, anger, all this comes, it seems like it is center stage. Actually, it never is. It is just that…

I have that very old example. If I drew a black dot on this wall and I ask all of you ‘What do you see?’ not even one of you will say ‘I see a big white wall.’ All of you will say ‘I see a black dot.’ This is our life … and dealing with these emotions is especially like that; that these things come. It’s like the dog’s tail is wagging. Everybody starts looking only at the tail. The rest of the dog is not seen. [Chuckles] So, when these emotions take center stage, the difference between energy-constructs which we call thoughts and energy-constructs that we call emotions is that one has this specific language-oriented meaning which is these thoughts. They just come and go but they throw language-oriented meaning actually. The emotions seem to have a quality of lingering.

So, when they are lingering, let them linger but don’t hold on to any concept about them. Let them come and go. See if you cannot even label it ‘anger’. Let attention be on it as much as it likes. Try to leave it empty of any labels. Because if I tell you one thing you might be a bit surprised: You have never experienced the exact same emotion twice. So, that which we call anger actually is a big spectrum, just given a convenient name. So, when this thing is there [flaps his hand in front of his chest] if you are not saying ‘I’m angry, I should not be angry, when will this anger go? I will be free only when …’  all these conclusions; none of them are true. Because if you look at our Sages, especially if you read stories of our Sages, many have been very angry at times. [Chuckles] There have been sages in India like Vishwamitra, Parashuram. They have destroyed big dynasties of kings and things like that in their anger.

So, don’t judge yourself, or don’t even say that ‘This has to go’ or ‘This has to stay’. Take no position about anything … because no matter how long something might seem to be at the center stage, for Infinity it is just a blink of an eyelid. And you don’t have to deal with it with your attention anyway. If your attention is fixated on it, then let it be fixated on it. You just become empty of any concept about it. As the Zen master said ‘These thoughts are visitors, they come and go. Allow them to come and go, just don’t serve them tea.’ What is this tea that we served to them? The tea of our belief, of our identification with them.

And one more tip I will give to you is that: Don’t try to solve it for some past version of you, or some future version of you; because that will keep you caught. You’re sitting here in Satsang and many of us are just trying to solve it for the one that was here yesterday feeling so much or something; or ‘How is it going to be when satsang is over and you are not here?’ You see? You are trying to solve it for this version or that version, instead of tasting ourselves in our reality Right Now.

The mind will keep saying ‘But in Satsang it is fine, Father, in Satsang it is fine, but…’ Like that. But even in Satsang, it is not fine because we are still buying into two notions of past and future.

Any moment when you are empty of this, when you allow this Unborn to be unborn, is Satsang.

What is happening here is that you are allowing Yourself to taste Your own Presence.

So, what is Here Now?

What can you say about Now?

Can I add a supplement to that question?

What can you say about Now without thinking about it?

Q: Nothing.

A: Even ‘nothing’ is saying too much, actually. You know what I mean? Neither something nor nothing, neither this or that, neither here or there, neither getting it nor missing it.

[Chuckles] Let it go.

It will come saying ‘This really means something!’ …but it really doesn’t.

You can just safely let it go.

And this silence, which initially can feel a bit uncomfortable, you’ll start enjoying the naturalness of that, uncluttered with false knowing.

Now, don’t exchange past concepts for new concepts. Don’t exchange the ideas for ‘Yes, I used to think I’m a person but now know that I am the Self or ‘I am the Self and the person’ or some newfangled notion like this. Allow yourself to let go. Allow the truth to breathe in this way, without again covering it up with conceptual dust.

And if you need a reassurance, Master Bankei has said that ‘All things are perfectly resolved in the Unborn.’ All things are perfectly resolved in the Unborn. So, can we not give it a chance, what he said? [Smiles] Let the Unborn deal with everything.

What is that Rumi quote? (Very beautiful, from that day…) ‘What a joy to be empty. Now God can live this life.’ Whether you call it Consciousness or you call it God or you call it the Unborn or you call it Self … various terms (they are not exactly synonymous but) are used synonymously many times.

And what is the other option anyway? I say ‘Let God lead this life.’ What you got? What option do you have? Who else is there, besides this one Consciousness, one Being? Show me that one. Then we will pick. [Smiles] Present as God, your very Being; undeniable. Now, present the other option. Then we will take an objective call, okay? Show the other one. Who is here? The lawyer in our head is representing which client? [Smiles] Who is the lawyer who is objecting vehemently and pleading a case for this ‘me’? Who is that?

You are here in Satsang; presumably you want freedom. But we cannot even find that one who wants freedom. Ah. [Smiles] Can you find? Find the one who wants freedom. What freedom can you give to this body? It is not in chains at this time. Who else did we find?

We are looking very simply, okay? Nothing special, very objectively asking: There seems to be a voice who is representing a ‘me’. Now, who is it actually representing? We just have to find that one … and present this one and say ‘See, this is the one that is representing. I need to take care of this one.’ Now, you are taking care of this one also in your quest to find liberation. So, let’s find that one and give liberation to it.

Who wants it?

And try to make this question fresh. Because otherwise the mind will keep saying ‘Yeah, I know; who am I? It doesn’t exist. I don’t exist…’ You see, these are all still just answers. So, see if you can meet the question fresh.

Who wants freedom?

What is here that wants freedom?

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi said that ‘The notion ‘I am something’ is the root of all suffering.’ The idea ‘I am something’. And what is the shortened version of ‘I am something’?

The idea of ‘me, me, me’ is the notion ‘I am something’. And in usual use, the even shorter version is ‘I’ (in usual use). So, if this notion (the ‘I’ or the ‘me’) became empty of meaning, did not point to any object, just became emptied of its referential nature, then what is left? The entire spectrum, right from the object to the Self, Awareness Itself … in that entire spectrum we’ve gone from referring to this ‘I’ as many of these things. Now, the Truth needs no such reference. You do not need to even fix the ‘I’ in its true position. If it is the true position, it must always be, and all positions that you can give to it, all references that you can make about it are fundamentally flawed because it is beyond any such reference that you can make. That is where the inquiry comes in. When you refer to yourself, the question is asked: ‘But who are you? Who am I?’ Empty of these references to yourself: What is it that is left?

All concepts in some way refer to you as if you are the limited self. As we go beyond this conceptual knowledge and even beyond intellectual reasoning, you no longer know yourself conceptually … but you are not empty of the true Knowing. Let us be empty of this blurriness that comes with false reference-making. That is why I have been asking: ‘What is that you know when you know nothing?’ I know on the face of it, it doesn’t sound like a very appealing question. It sounds like wordplay almost, but it isn’t. We only suffer from what we think we know. Have you ever suffered without thinking you know something? You have to at least make a conclusion that ‘I know what this is’ to suffer from it. That’s why Papaji [Sri Poonja] said ‘To be happy you do not need anything. But to be miserable, you definitely need something.’ I would add to that and say ‘You need to know something.’

Now, the mind will come and say ‘But that’s a dumb way to live. What kind of living is that? That is so dumb.’ This is just the momentum of prior conditioning. I was saying the other day … this bumblebee came into the room and was fluttering its wings and going from place to place. I was asking everyone whether they feel like she is thinking about it and then saying ‘Okay, I’m going to flap flap like this and flap flap like that.’ But it is the beautiful intelligence which animates it. The same supreme intelligence is animating our lives. A bird is newborn, but in the season of migration it knows which direction to fly. But it’s not a conceptual knowing (presumably; let us speak to the bird about that). [Chuckles] There is innate intelligence which is driving all of this. Like Guruji [Sri Mooji] says, the tree is not deciding where its next branch is going to be. (‘Ah, should it be left, right?’) [Chuckles] It is not deciding. And yet, it’s so beautiful that every one of them is unique and yet such supreme beauty is present.

So, this surrender, this letting go, is not dumb. It is Being with this Supreme Intelligence which is animating this entire perceived creation. But it doesn’t even make that distinction between the phenomenal and the nominal; the perceived and the perceiver. Even these distinctions are not needed there.

Q: So, I had a related question. I have been following the pointings of Mooji Baba for a while now. Sometimes I get a doubt whether I’m really able to experience the Presence or whether it is a mask created in a very subtle way by the mind itself because it can be very clever. How can I?

A: Yes. I will help you with this. What you have to do is you have to be not Be. Don’t Be, for a moment. Did it? Don’t Be, now. Done? [Laughs]

Q: I get a sense of that but I don’t have that sense. The moment I get it, that means I have not been there.

A: No, it’s not complicated. Okay, just like … come here as if this is your first Satsang; you don’t know anything about anything. And I want you to stop Being for a moment. Like don’t Exist. [Silence] Stopped Existing?

Q: There is sense of void.

A: Who is tasting this void? Is it the one sitting next to you tasting this void? Whose report are you making?

Q: Something within.

A: Something within. Stop this one. Let that one not Be, that which perceives even void. Did it?

Q: Yes.

A: Who senses ‘Yes’?

Q: Still something within.

A: That which perceives all of this is Your Presence. You can’t miss it; in fact, you can never experience it not Being there.

Okay, let me ask another question: Are you Aware now?

Q: Yes.

A: How did you confirm this? What did you see?

Q: I didn’t see anything but I felt …

A: Was it a feeling-felt?

Q: Just an Awareness.

A: Just Awareness. What is the color of it?

Q: No color.

A: No color. How old did it feel?

Q: No age.

A: No age. How big was it?

Q: No definition applies.

A: No definition applies. Now, isn’t it unique? This discovery itself so simple and yet so unique.

Did you see a green apple on this couch?

Q: No.

A: Why did you say ‘No’? You didn’t see the shape, you didn’t see the size, you didn’t see the color green. For Awareness, you said ‘Yes’ … for green apple you said ‘No’. Why?

You see what I’m getting at? For phenomenal objects, you have to get their attributes and then we confirm. For this Knowing-ness itself, for this Awareness itself, it is so primal that you cannot deny it and yet you do not perceive it objectively.

Can it be as simple as this? They say ‘The Self is without attributes. It does not come and go, does not have age.’ I asked you simply: Are you Aware? You said ‘Yes’. I asked you about the attributes, you say ‘No’. I said ‘Are you making this report conceptually?’ you say ‘No’. It is an experience but it is not phenomenal. [Smiles] Can we say such a thing? It is the only non-phenomenal experience you can have. Your unchanging aspect, the unmanifest aspect of You which is ever-present but prior to Presence.

Now get rid of it. Don’t try to hold on to it, don’t even abide in it, get rid of it! Don’t be aware, throw it away, push it out! [Silence] Can you do it?

Q: Can’t.

A: Can’t do it. Then what is the struggle about? If we can’t leave it, then what are we trying to get?

Q: It just that the attention shifts to the person.

A: Yes, but where does attention report back to? No matter to what it goes to, where does it report back to?

Q: I.

A: So, this Self it cannot leave. It’s like a dog on a leash; it can go here, here, here and here but can it leave you? It can’t. So, we get so obsessed with checking on what is on this side of attention, with what is the content it is bringing back. But what is on that side of attention? Who is it bringing back to? Does that also change?

Q: How can I make that side of the attention permanent?

A: I said, no? You try to get rid of it. Try to make it impermanent. This is a strange Satsang you have come to. [Chuckles] Here we are not saying that we want to make it permanent. I am saying that: You take this Awareness and throw it away; make it impermanent. Can you do it? Like for one moment, don’t be Aware. You come fully on this side of your attention, the content side. Leave Awareness, can you do it?

Q: Can’t do it.

A: So, the Truth is always permanent, you see? It is not coming and going. It is just these ideas which have to go.

That’s good? Are you going to leave the idea or are you going to leave the conversation? [Chuckles]

Q: I’m going to leave the idea. [Laughter]

A: Because many times it can happen that we just leave the conversation and we feel like ‘I still have to do this! I still have to make sure it happens like this.’ These are just ideas. And who is the ‘I’ that you are referring to in all of these ideas? Who has to do this?

Q: Awareness.

A: But this Awareness, is it doing it in the traditional way we think about doing; like objectively? It has never moved, it has no limbs. [Chuckles] All of this is its limbs, in a way. So, it is doing all of this.

Q: It’s just Observing.

A: It is just aware, yes. So, every time we make this notion that ‘I must do this or do that’ we are again picking up the limited version of ourselves and buying into that.

Now, ‘not-doing’ is another version of ‘doing’. See if you can follow this. When you make that intention that ‘I’m not going to do anything now because Ananta said I don’t have to do anything; I’m just not going to do’ then you are ‘doing’ the ‘not-doing’ … you are taking the position of the ‘not-doer’. But that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that ‘doing’ and ‘not-doing’ are not applicable to Your Truth.

Now, this the mind cannot fathom. It will try to make a concept around it, it will try something but it really cannot fathom the neutrality. It can either fathom ‘doing, doing’ or ‘not-doing, not-doing’. If I say ‘both’ or ‘neither’ … what is left?

You find that the peace that happens in this letting go is way more than the peace that you get through anything that you resolve mentally or achieve materialistically anyway. That peace that you’re looking for through the achievement of this, that and the other, is naturally present. And the best part is that in being naturally present, it is not opposed to achieving this, that and the other. It is not contradictory to that. All of that can still happen.

Like, suppose all your life you believed that you have to push this heavy cart along the road. You have to push this heavy cart along the road, and the minute you leave it, it starts pushing you back so you’re losing ground every moment if you stop pushing. But one day, somebody comes to you and says ‘Why do you push this cart?’ You say ‘Without that, it will run me over. I’ll go backwards.’ He says ‘Do you want to try? Do you want to try leaving it? I’m telling you that this cart is running with super Guru power.’ [Chuckles] ‘This cart is running with super Guru power. Are you willing to try it out?’ And very few, almost reluctantly, will say ‘Oh, that must be because the road was slanted this way; just for now.’ Or ‘Because of the situation I’m in right now (I’m in Satsang) I can leave it. But I can’t leave it at work. Guru power can’t work at work, it can only work in Satsang.’ This kind of thing. But as you start letting go of this, you see that the cart is running as well or as badly (at least as well or as badly) as it was running before. You see, this is just the idea that you have to push life. ‘I have to make life happen this way. I can turn it based on how I want it.’ It’s all fallacy.

I used to say often that trying to control the flow of life is trying to control the river with a twig. We don’t even have this twig. So, how to control life? How are we actually controlling it? Who has managed to control it? But this fear is there that ‘I’ve been pushing this cart so much! Look at this state. And suppose I didn’t push it at all, then what would I be?’ You see? The mind comes and says ‘Then what would you be? You’d just become like a beggar on the streets. I don’t know what would happen to you.’ This kind of thing.

As we start letting go more and more, this trust deepens. This heavy bag that I thought I had to carry on my head actually takes care of itself. No effort is needed. I can just let it go. And just like my heartbeat continues, the sun continues to rise, flowers continue to bloom, our life also keeps unfolding in its own beautiful way.

If you try to understand it with your mind, then it will only be strange scenarios for you. [Woman begins heavy breathing and soft sounds in the room] Like, for some of you, watching what is happening, you must be like ‘She is really suffering. If this is what happens when you come to Satsang, I don’t want this.’ But I can tell you, it’s very beautiful. It’s beyond any other phenomenal experience that you can have. So, our mind cannot understand these things. But our mind is quick to judge, it is quick to make conclusions.

[Silence]

The funny thing that the mind does is to convince you that the problem is something else. It will convince you that the problem is some sort of decision at a worldly level. How many of you have gone through this? Almost all of you. I’m looking around this room and I see that almost all of you have gone through this, where you’ve been convinced that the problem is a decision at a worldly level. But the problem is never a decision at the worldly level. It is only about an inner opening. How open are we inwardly? And then most of you will testify that the world takes care of itself … including this body.

So, the only decision ever, as Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi said at one point ‘The only choice you have is whether to go along with the stream of your thoughts or to let them go’ … whether to remain inwardly open or to limit yourself through some conceptual limitation.

So, actually, the question is never really about ‘Should I quit my job?’ It is never about ‘Should I do this or do that?’ Of course, sometimes these things can seem very strong. In a way, the question always is about:

How open can I be?

Is my acceptance just lip service?

Is my surrender just lip service?

[Silence]

Q: Father, there is no end to deepening of trust in life. With Guruji’s [Sri Mooji’s] Grace, there was an insight that everything is ‘Guru Kripa Kevalam’ here. Everything is so beautiful, everything is only a blessing, whether we realize it or not. Then slowly the head gets pushed into the play. To see that, in every situation, is this really the response or is this really that outcome. And this back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, again coming back to ‘Everything is Master’s Grace’ … then again ‘Why this?’ This never really stops.

A:  Yes. Actually, ‘Guru Kripa Kevalam’ or ‘Everything is the will of Consciousness’ or ‘God’s will is All There Is’ is the best answer to every ‘Why?’ [Chuckles] Because mentally this might seem to you that this is like an escapism or something like that, but actually: Can you tell of one thing that you really know the reason why to? [Laughs] You can’t even confirm cause and effect. ‘Why?’ implies ‘What is the cause of this? Why does this happen?’ but we can’t even confirm that there is cause and effect. As it is said in the Yoga Vashishta: The bird flew and landed on the branch of the coconut tree and the coconut fell. The mind will say the coconut fell because the bird landed … but can you really say that? We don’t know for certain. So, ‘Why?’ is like this. We don’t even know:

Why do you wake up in the morning?

And when you wake up, why does this world appear?

Why do you exist?

People have been trying to solve these questions for thousands of years.

What is the point of existence?

What is the meaning of life?

Isn’t it? But we are quick to determine reasoning for everything else that happens after you exist. The substratum we don’t know why, but the appearance on top of this substratum we are quick to presume and say ‘Oh, this is because of this, this one is like this because of that’ and ‘I am feeling like this because he did that or she did that.’ These kinds of things we are quick to conclude on but we don’t actually know. We don’t know why your next thought will appear as it appears. So, we don’t know any of these why’s. And without this ‘Why, why, why?’ most of this apparent suffering seems to become light.

The thing is that when we ask ‘Why?’ we are not even truly investigating; we are so quick to conclude ‘This is why!’ Even when you asked ‘Why?’ were you truly investigating and inquiring, instead of then just presuming and interpreting and judging? So, mostly, the responses or the conclusions we draw out of our ‘Why?’ are very insipid, they are very surface layer; they have no actual basis. So, it just gives us a very fertile ground to judge ourselves, to judge others and the world. ‘Why [am I/are they/is it] like this?’

I like that verse very much: [Quote by Kurt Vonnegut from Cat’s Cradle]:

‘Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly, man got to ask himself why, why, why.

Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land, man got to tell himself he understands.’

This is a strangely human condition where we feel like we have to resolve our life mentally.

So ‘Guru Kripa Kevalam’ is the best antidote to this. Because it is very authoritative: ‘Master’s Grace is All There Is.’

‘Why this? Why is our Manager so bad?’

‘Master’s Grace is All There Is.’ [Chuckles]

Even if it starts out (for many it just starts out) as word play. [Chuckles] For many, it just starts out with some resistance, but they have tried everything else so they have no other [option]. ‘No harm trying this out.’ [Chuckles] This is like ‘We have tried every other self-help technique so we might as well try this out.’ So, it starts out as word play many times, just resisting-ly. ‘Oh, even this must be …’ Sometimes it starts out resentfully also. ‘God, You only are doing all of this to me!’ … not as a form of gratitude but as a blame. Like Amitabh Bachchan in that movie scene where he is throwing a big tantrum with God. ‘You must be very happy today!’ [Laughter] But life somehow has a way of squeezing everything out of us and bringing us to this sort of helplessness at some point or the other.

So, this ‘Why?’  … Consciousness. For a long time, if somebody asks ‘Why?’ I would just say ‘Consciousness’ [Chuckles] which means that it is the will of Consciousness, it is the will of this Projective light, the Supreme Intelligence, your very Reality, God.

And this is what you were speaking of: the deepening of trust. It can start off at a very surface level, trust, and say. ‘Okay, let’s see.’ But as you go you will find that ‘Ah …’

It’s not a cheat code to life. It doesn’t mean that ‘Guru Kripa Kevalam: all I really want is ten million dollars in my bank and now I have left it up to You.’ [Chuckles] Then every day, you just check your bank balance to see if the transfer happened or not. [Chuckles] It’s not that way.

It means that everything, whatever the state of this seeming-outer appearance might be, whatever the state of this body might be, whatever the state or quality of our emotions might be, whatever the state and quality of our thoughts might be, all of this moving light and sound show, we leave it up to the light of the Satguru.

[Reading from chat]: “Father, you say be open to everything; thoughts, feeling, etc.  But sometimes openness to thoughts allows them to drag me along with the stories. It seems like a lot of holding back is required. Am I misunderstanding something here?”

What is ‘Drag me along?’ So, when I’m saying ‘Remain open, let everything come and go naturally’ he says that thoughts come and then ‘If I am open to thought, it just takes me along with it’. But what is actually happening? What is the mechanics of this? A thought can come. What is the maximum a thought can stay? Count the seconds; the longest the thought can stay. I am not saying when it repeats. It is one thought. Somebody says, 2 seconds; maybe like that. So, that which is going to go (let’s presume this answer is right) in the maximum of 2 seconds, it really can’t drag you along. So, then ‘Drag me along’ can only mean that it can attract my belief, it can attract my assent or something like that. If I’m open to it, it can drag me along. If I’m closed to it, then it doesn’t have a chance to pull me in.

This is a very interesting discussion because if you look at most spiritual practices ever in this world, most of them have been so that your attention is not so attached to these thoughts when they come and go; whether it is chanting, whether it is be with your breath, whether it is yoga, whatever the method you might use. It is more to do with trying to control your attention so that your attention does not go to these thoughts and therefore, then the question of belief does not arise at all. The practice of staying with your sense of Being (staying with the sense ‘I Am’) then brings an anchor to your attention and then if your attention is anchored on something, then it doesn’t feel like these thoughts-systems arise (and even if they do arise, they don’t seem so strong).

Now the thing with this method is that, here, I’ve hardly seen anyone gain mastery over their attention. Many have tried. Many have tried for 50 years, tried to control their attention (I mean control and hold it so that it doesn’t go to the thoughts) but it hardly ever works and it seems like a lot of sadhana is needed to gain this kind of mastery.

So, besides this type of effort there is also a more natural, simpler way. You can call it, in a way, the path of surrender, which means that actually these thoughts don’t mean anything till belief goes to them.

So, this is a classic example of when I say ‘Try not to think of an orange’ or ‘Don’t bring your attention to an orange’. Very quickly the orange wants to come into attention. Then you say ‘No, no, chant Ram’. Then, with some practice, you can say ‘Okay, stay away from the orange, stay with Ram’. Beautiful; but mastery of that seems like it takes a lot of effort and time and the orange seems to sneak itself in the middle of Ram. Like ‘Ram, orange, Ram, orange, Ram…’ [Chuckles] So, it can feel like a bit of struggle is there. But if I say to you ‘Don’t worry about whatever appears, whether it is an orange, an apple, whatever it is, don’t consider yourself to be an orange or an apple, don’t consider yourself to be that which the thought is saying that you are’ … because that is all that is happening. The thought is conveying an idea about you and you buy into that idea of what you are.

So, why do I call this the path of surrender? Because all these thought-forms are then just surrendered. They are let go of. So, in a way, to me, it seems like a more natural way; a sahaja way. In a way, all I’m saying is what the Zen Master said ‘Let all thoughts, as visitors, come and go. You just don’t serve them tea’ … including the thought that you could be dragged along by, or you could be taken away from your center by or something like that. Because when you check, you will see that this has no basis. The thought does not last long enough for you to be dragged anywhere. And what You really Are, That which perceives thought, has no change; there is no movement, there is no real dragging.

For some of you, if you find these attention-oriented techniques natural and helpful, then to stay with the sense ‘I Am’ is a very beautiful method. Or to chant the holy name of the god like Ram is a very beautiful method. If you find any of these more natural, this is very good as well. Here, in those times when I was looking for the Truth, it didn’t seem that natural. I experimented, I tried various things, various sadhanas for even long periods of time but something led me to this effortlessness, this simple openness, this simple allowing, which seemed be without self-judgment, without too much time to hold onto something.

Like I say sometimes, it is a key to get to identity. Your identity is stored in a bank locker. Have you heard this example from me? Your identity is stored in a bank locker. Now, at least in India, how does the bank locker work? You have one key, and the banker has another. And when you go to the bank, what you have to do is you have to put in both of the keys and only then the locker works. One key is not enough. So, to get to your identity, you need both the keys of attention as well as belief. You need the key: which is you perceive this thought construct, which is attention (perception is just attention) but also, you need to give your assent to this thought- construct, that ‘Yes, this is true or it has meaning’. When both are there, then the identity or separation seems real.

If, for some of you, it feels natural, that ‘I don’t have to put the first key at all. No attention’. Then, finished. It can be anything. There is every single technique. Some have a sense of imagining the face of your master; or anything. Whatever keeps your attention naturally present, it is good enough. But identity is formed when attention and belief function. And I find that to let go of even attention, for me, seems like a very natural way (if you can call it a way).

The good thing is that we have everything in our tool-kits. Some of you will say ‘But belief just goes automatically. When thoughts come, I just end up believing them’. But you don’t believe many of your thoughts. So many of them just come and go and you don’t end up giving them belief. So, it is not inherent; belief is not inherent in the thought itself otherwise we will not need the term ‘belief’ at all. We will not talk about belief if the arising of thought itself inherently means that it is believed, then what is the point of belief? There is no term like ‘belief’ then. Then thought will encapsulate it.

So, if a thought came that ‘I am a green mosquito’…? [Chuckles) All nonsense thoughts come; then it is not so easily believed. But it’s only that which we have identified with. We can use the term ‘interest’ there, in a way. The thoughts that we are identified with or which seem to hold some meaning for us, like ‘If I do this, then I will get freedom’ for example. Because speaking to an audience of spiritual seekers, in a way, then thoughts about freedom can get more belief. Somebody who is interested in ice-skating only in their life, or wrestling, will not be interested in the Freedom. [They will say]: ‘What are you talking about?’ They will not get easily identified with those. So, the belief is not inherent in the thought itself.

Imagine how that would be; the thought would come ‘I am a green mosquito, flapping’. It could be anything. Who can say what the next thought is going to be? Nobody can guarantee to me that they know for certain that their next thought is not going to be that ‘I am a green mosquito’. [Chuckles] Nobody can guarantee. So, if it was just so inherent in the arising of the thought then really, it is like just the thought comes and you are caught. It doesn’t work like that. These thoughts come and there is a subtle power of giving them a truth value. ‘Yes, truth value.’ But to determine the truthfulness of it, the meaning in it, is a primal functioning of Consciousness; as primal as attention is. And this is called ‘belief’.

So then ‘Why does it seem like that some of them just get me? Why does it come like that?’ Because we have identified or nurtured those with our belief in the past. So, what to do about those? That depends upon your temperament. ‘Those which just seem to get me, what to do about those?’ depends upon your temperament.

If your temperament is more the inquiry type, like ‘What is going on?’ … if you are attracted to ‘Why is life like this?’ and ‘What is going on?’ (these kinds of questions) then you are very well suited to inquiry. Then you can take on this thought and say ‘Who does it belong to?’ If the oppressive thought is saying, for example, ‘Oh, you will never come to freedom’ or ‘You are so far from it’ then you pull it in and say ‘Who is it about? Who is this really about? Who will not come to their freedom?’ And you don’t leave this. Whenever life gives some space for it, you pull this into an inquiry and don’t leave till the venom is pulled out, till it becomes de-fanged. As long as its ability to cause you this sense of suffering has not been extracted out of it, then you keep asking and say ‘Who? Who is it about?’

For some of you, this seem like too much work. ‘Who wants to do this stuff?’ This kind of thing doesn’t appeal to you and you are more in your heart, in this way, just, devotional. Then you will say ‘Whatever this problem is, it is not mine, it is my Master’s or it is the Lord’s – Guru Kripa Kevalam’. And the beauty of this is that more you truly surrender in your heart, the more you see that it is just so apparent that everything is being taken care by the supreme intelligence (whether you call it the Satguru or whether you call it Consciousness, that doesn’t matter). The more you see it, the easier it becomes to surrender. It’s very virtuous way; a virtuous circle, in a way.

You come to this point where most of these thoughts then will just come and go and they will not seem so big, so strong, so powerful; their gravity, their magnetism, will not seem so strong.

[Reading from chat]: “I think Bhagavan [Sri Ramana Maharshi] said ‘Physical reality is an illusion. Although this could be seen as another idea, it helps in eliminate a lot of fears.”

‘Maya’ is everything that can be measured. Everything that can be measured means everything that can be fathomed, everything that has duration, everything that changes, that comes and goes. In India, we call it ‘Maya’ and this Maya is roughly translated into ‘illusion’. But actually, if you look at what Shankara said about Maya, he said that ‘It is indeterminable; neither can we say that it exists nor can we say that it doesn’t exist.’

[Someone says]: Unfathomable.

A: Yeah, unfathomable. As opposed to putting it in a straight box, which is ‘illusion, therefore, not real’ or something. It apparently exists as long as it is seen though … is what could be a tame definition of what was trying to be conveyed.

[Silence]

As you look at these ideas some more, you’ll see that. You said that ‘To say that the physical appearance is an illusion is very helpful to eliminate fears’ but what is the layer in which this elimination of fear is happening? Also, in physical appearance, which is still phenomenal. If it is an illusion, then how does it matter whether the fears are been eliminated or not? [Chuckles] It’s like saying ‘Once I believe that the world is an illusion, my life in the world becomes better.’ So, therefore, our allegiance is still towards how to make life better in the world.

This dichotomy will also lead to suffering, as all dichotomies do. Although they might seem to provide some initial relief, if our heart is still on ‘How to make my physical existence better’ then although to repeat to ourselves ‘This physical existence is just illusory’ might seem to provide some relief … the point is that our attachment is still to how we are doing in this physical existence. And this duality, any duality in the mind, leads to suffering. That’s why I say: Truth must be for Truth’s sake; not for any benefit of the Truth.

I feel like all of you are very tough on yourselves because, for me, it just feels like you ARE in this for truth’s sake, because why would you be here otherwise? At least in a Satsang like this, there is nothing else on offer actually. So, Truth for Truth’ sake, independent of what then happens in your phenomenal existence, is a very, very potent statement because it includes surrender, it includes true Knowingness; that which we’re calling Truth.

Therefore, it’s good to see: ‘What is that I really want? What do I really want?’

And not with the perspective of beating yourself up, not getting attached to these answers, but just to see that it is not true; it’s just some by-products that we heard about in some books. But I feel that all of you are really into this because you do not want to give assent to lies anymore. You’re tired of lying to yourself, you’re tired of all of this fake stuff. That’s why you allow yourself to let go of these deeply-held belief systems … even though the letting go of them may involve, many times, some painful seeming-releasing happening.

Okay, let me say it simply: Our beliefs are what we hold onto as if they are true.

Isn’t it? That is what a belief is; concepts we hold onto as if they are true. Now, we hold onto them because we feel like they are of some value. Like holding on to this hand; it feels like it is of some value. [Someone is holding his hand while sitting there] But if it was to be snatched away, then you feel like ‘No, I don’t want to give that up.’

So, when you come to Satsang and your beliefs are questioned, it’s not always going to be a fun process because you’re holding onto them because you feel like they are of some value. So, when it is said ‘To know even one thing is to know even too much’ or some statement like that, you feel like ‘No. I feel like I need to know this stuff. I have given up all nonsense and now what is left is pristine.’ And then, it is looked into together, and you’re like ‘No, it’s not.’ [Chuckles] And you don’t necessarily like that. Because in the world you have been told that ‘If you know nothing, you are dumb.’ You don’t want that; nobody wants to be dumb. And what did they say? Who was the wisest man? They say (at least in the western philosophy) that the wisest man who ever lived was Socrates. Why was he the wisest man who ever lived or the wisest human ever lived? Because he said:

‘I know only one thing, which is that I know nothing.’

So, all these things that we think are so meaningful, so relevant, so important to our life, all the concepts that we have of reality don’t come close to Reality.

To experience Your freedom, to experience Your Reality, to experience the Self, to experience Your Sage-like nature, all you have to do is: Experience one moment of notion-less-ness; one moment where you just forget about it … whatever it might be. That’s all that any Master is actually asking.

Now, if you refer to your memory then you say ‘But he is constantly asking for that one moment.’ [Chuckles] But the Truth is deeper than that, which your mind cannot fathom. It’s actually just about this one moment: This one moment. That’s all. Just this one moment.

You don’t even have to worry about even the concept of one moment. Just fully open, everything can flow as it likes; attention, perception. Nothing matters. Everything is just fine. No past, no future; just Now.

This is the simplest, for You. ‘The simplest for You’ means that it’s impossible for the mind but the simplest for You. If you try to put it in your conceptual box then it will become complex again. All I am saying is:

Give me one moment.

Forget about everything.

Don’t judge yourself.

Don’t rush to meaning.

[Reading from Chat]: “It appears that it requires some practice with holding belief. It works very well sometimes.”

A: Bhagavan [Sri Ramana Maharshi] said two sets of things. He said:

Don’t believe your thoughts. ‘I am the body’ is a thought, ‘I am the mind’ is a thought, ‘I am in the world’ is a thought; all these are just thoughts.

But he also said that if it feels like it takes some effort to withdraw belief, then make that seeming-effort … till you see that even that is Grace.

If you feel that to give yourself one moment when you are free from interpretations, judgments, seems like it takes some effort, then make it.

Also, Bhagavan had said something very beautiful (along with this) he said ‘Even ‘I am God’ is also a thought’. That means don’t try to replace this ‘I am the person’ idea with another better idea. [Smiles]

And definitely don’t be concerned about your progress; in the sense of many times we are trying to let go but we are trying to let go with one eye open, like a surrender with one eye open. [Chuckles] It’s like ‘I am going to be notion-less but what’s happening to me then? Am I making progress? Am I becoming more free?’ [Chuckles] This kind of thing.

Why do I say it like that; surrender with one eye open? It’s like ‘I am surrendering everything to you, Father, just please make sure that it goes fine.’ You see?  [Chuckles] If we still have an eye on whether it is fine or not, or what ‘fine’ actually means, then it’s not surrender actually, it’s just deal-making.

So, when we let go of our notions, when you don’t keep yourself anchored to the notions of freedom or progress or getting it or not getting it, then we really see (what Bhagavan said) that ‘I am the body’ is a thought, ‘I am the mind’ is a thought, ‘I am God’ is a thought, ‘I am the world’ is a thought, ‘I am in time’ is a thought, ‘I am in space’ is a thought. All of these are just thoughts.

I have been making this point, but I feel like very few are actually assimilating what I’m saying … where I’m saying that to face things openly, to look at everything in this empty way completely is the best, most open way to meet it. To label it is an avoidance. And yet, day after day, almost every day, I get a complaint that we’re sort of in avoidance of some experience by meeting it in this way. Now, I wonder if the message will get through this time. What I was saying is that if you run away from what is being experienced (something is arising and I’m saying you run away from that experience) and you use some spiritual concept like ‘Nothing has ever happened’ then that would be like an avoidance. It’s like trying to force the attention away from it and not look at it.

But what I am saying is: Be with it completely, head on! It itself inherently does not have the label with it. You see? But when you define it, then you are not with it completely (when you are with all your ideas about it and all your past experiences). And I started using this term a long time ago: ‘Don’t Advaita it away’. It’s very strange that I’m hearing it now, that we just ‘Advaita it away’. But it is not like that. ‘Advaita it away’ means to use a concept like ‘Nothing has ever happened’ to come into a conceptual denial of what is being experienced.

Stay with this experience fully. Don’t run away from anything.

But that presumption that ‘I know what this is’ is only bringing past baggage into it, which is a way in which you avoid the experience by defining what you think it is.

And the idea that meeting life this way, completely open and naked, is somewhere contrary to our humanity or our humanness is just strange because the most human of expressions is to meet life in this way.

But if ‘human’ is another term for egoic or personal, and we are just trying to change terms and make excuses for egotism, then I cannot bless that, in a way … if it is a term that is used as a guise for specialness, for arrogance, for individuality.

True humanity must be to meet everything appearing in this manifest experience with openness, non-judgmental-ness.

[Silence]

But if the term ‘I’m only human after all’ actually is translating into ‘I’m an ego after all’ then I can’t let you rest there. (Or ‘I am a person after all’.)

So, as with every other term, it is this term which has to be clarified.

A: No conclusion actually lives up to the Seeing itself …

Q: It’s not a substitute for the Seeing.

A: Exactly. … nor does it describe it in any true way.

Q: Not in any true way.

A: Yes, only in a …

Q: Provisional way.

A: Provisional way and also in a negation. Like a conclusion can be ‘I see that there can be no inside or outside’ but it doesn’t say anything about ‘What Is’ it only describes what it is not, like ‘there is no inside or outside’. But if you try to describe ‘What Is’ we see that words are not so eloquent.

Even when we say ‘Unchanging’ (for example) ‘it is not changing’ … but what is it doing? [Chuckles] ‘It’s not changing’ we can say. So, we can put a lot of un’s or non’s to describe what is not, but if you were to try to positively describe it, it is not that straight-forward because no description comes close to this what truly it is. But the thing is that now if we see this and we say ‘Okay’ then you would feel … if you felt that the mind is all that we have, if the mind is all that we have then it would feel like ‘Just give up; there is no chance’ because the mind cannot capture this in any true way.

But is the mind all that we have?

Q: At the moment all I can see is conclusions being made.

A: Yes, that which sees, that itself is that mind?

Q: No. But because I cannot see that in an objective way …

A: This is a very good point; let’s pause here for a moment. So, ‘I see the mind but the ‘I’ that sees the mind I cannot see that in an objective way.’ Then how do we claim that ‘I see the mind’? Is there a knowledge which is deeper than (or independent of) just our objective experience?

Q: I feel more comfortable in saying just that ‘the mind is seen’ but don’t feel like ‘I see’.

A: Yeah, so we can look at that. If you say ‘I see the mind’ are you making the report on Govind’s behalf? [the one sitting adjacent to him]

Q: No.

A: Then whose? [Chuckles] I know this sort of dilemma because you can’t really say ‘I’ because you have no perception of that. You can’t say ‘it’s a third party’ also.

So, this is a beautiful explorative territory. Like when we say (in Advaita it is very popular to say) ‘It is seen’ or ‘It is just perceived’ and the intent there is to try and remove any sort of personal sense of either doer-ship or personal perception from the picture, but it’s not in that sense that ‘Oh, it is seen but I am not seeing it’. That’s not what you are saying. Isn’t it? [Smiles] Because at this point, we can neither claim nor deny that ‘I Am’.

Q: We can neither claim nor deny that ‘I am seeing it’.

A: ‘I am seeing it.’ So, this is already very good because when we go beyond claim and denial then we see that it’s not possible in that way; then we have left this dualistic thought (or at least this aspect behind). So, as we look at all aspects of time and space, of this appearance (as we call it) we see that you can’t actually claim or deny any of it. [Chuckles] Then dualistic thought doesn’t really have a way to grab a hold.

Q: I mean we cannot make conclusions about …

A: …anything. Anything in the appearance we can’t make a conclusion about and that which is not an appearance, which is neither (not coming and going, not perceived) that we can’t make a conclusion about anyway.

Q: It’s like I’m so used to making objective reference.

A: Yes.

Q: So, making the reference of myself as something which is not seen is bit unusual.

A: Even that you do not have to do.

Q: Reference itself means limitations.

A: Exactly.

In a way, it is like habit-breaking when the Masters say ‘Look at that which is unchanging. You are That.’ It’s really to break this habit of making a reference to ourselves as limited, or just objective. But really, it’s not so that you can continue to make even this distinction; it is that once you break the habit of making the reference which is objective about yourself, you do not have to make any reference. And this is true openness. The openness that is spoken of in Satsang is this.

That ‘I’ (which it seems can point anywhere in entire spectrum of phenomenal to non-phenomenal, in a way; it can seem to point in this entire spectrum) this comedian ‘I’ can point. But what if it no longer pointed to anything?

The term ‘I’ …, if it was divested of its reference making, what would change?

[Silence]

Because when you are struck in notions, whether they are worldly or spiritual, then there is just this sense of a worldly individual or a worldly limitation or a spiritual limitation.

The spiritual ego is what? Just that which is fed with all of these spiritual concepts and then we make a boundary about the ‘I’ saying that only that which is spiritual applies to it. [Smiles]

Q: Spiritual conclusions.

A: Spiritual conclusions are what it is made up of; this spiritual belief system. So, any of this boundary-making is not real actually.