BOOKS BY ANANTA Welcome to Satsang with Ananta

I feel like for many of you, you have this mental constriction about ‘What is right, what is wrong, how should I project myself, will something seem too arrogant or will something seem too humble?’ Now openness or the allowing that we are speaking of is that which is empty of the holding back and allowing. Empty of the duality of this. It is not even to take the position; so I don’t want to say necessarily that ‘You must allow.’ I’m saying it’s neither of those. Like if we can make the term itself irrelevant in a way.

It is a great forgetfulness, in the sense of forgetting what these terms imply. Because using these terms, you seem to apply them to your experience and say ‘Okay, am I closed or am I allowing?’ And either is a position that way. So, that allowing, the greater allowing which we are speaking of, the greater openness, is nothing to do with whether I’m [gestures with arms ‘open’ or ‘closed.’] And yet, in this play, it seems as if once we take on these position then something seems to replicate that position in the outward expression as well.

But we don’t have to bother about it. You don’t have to bother about how that is expressing itself because that’s how we make a report about ourselves. ‘This is what is happening to me. I’m not allowing fully or I’m closing.’ But I’m saying: Leave the opposites. Make the term itself irrelevant. Like the idea that you could allow or you could be closed, if you were to forget about that …, is your notionless existence.

[Silence]

Let’s go deeper into this one actually. Many of you have this notion ‘I’m not fully open or I’m not allowing fully.’ We have this notion that ‘I should open up more; I should be more fully non-resistive, or allowing.’ But as long as there is that sense of ‘doing that’ then it can never be that fully. As long as there is a sense that there is a sense of doership about it, that ‘I can do it or not do it’ (like ‘I’m doing the closing or opening of it’) then the full opening that you are conceptualizing can never actually be your experience because you have the notion of this doership in some sense. But if you leave it, in the sense that you don’t become averse to it but just leave the concept of it, leave the effort, leave the effort and non-effort, leave the doership and non-doership about it. ‘Leave the opposites’ is what I’m trying to convey. And I know that language is not designed for what I’m trying to convey, so it seems like a bit of a struggle sometimes to use it.

But do you have a sense of what I’m saying? As long as you have the idea that ‘I must fully allow’ then that is not the full allowing anyway. You see? Because your doership is still involved in that. The idea that there is some separate entity who has the volition to be able to do that is still there, which is not the full allowing anyway. So, if you can forget the pair of opposites like ‘allow’ or’ close or holdback.’…

Q: It’s like I experience something which I did not experience before. I could not even fathom that this is….
A: Okay, experience everything now and tell me if you can fathom it.

Q: That’s what I am saying, I can’t!

A: You can’t fathom it.

Q: I can’t even, I can’t even…
A: Nobody (this point is important, in a way) nobody can ever fathom even their phenomenal experience in this moment (or let’s say ‘no mind can ever fathom it’).

That is why another word for ego is arrogance. It’s just like the idea that ‘I have figured out what even this existence is!’ (that ‘this is this!’ or ‘that is that!’) is just a very silly belief. But as we hang on to it, then, because we are scared that in the losing of that we will lose our specialness or something. In a way it is also like ‘How will I live my life?’. It is the most arrogant thing: ‘How will I live my life?’ Then what is God’s role? The world is functioning, everything is happening. Like Guruji [Sri Mooji] says: Your heart is beating, your breath is happening, your lungs are functioning, everything around you is going on, millions and trillions of planets but ‘you’ have to live ‘your’ life.

Q: But where am I?

A: Yes. [Laughs] She is beyond….

Q: Okay, I can’t live it because I don’t find myself inside.

A: Outside?

Q: Outside also…

A: You were in Satsang yesterday?

Q: Yeah…

A: So, neither inside you find, nor outside; so then?

Q: Yeah. If I can’t find it inside then there is no outside really.

A: Yes, but the ‘I’ who can’t find, are you making up? …, the ‘I’ that can’t find either outside or inside?

Q: No, I’m not making it up because it’s a sense of Being. It’s ‘I Am’. This sense of Being. So how can I make it up?

A: Okay. So, if You are That and you cannot find yourself inside or outside, then what must you be?

Q: That’s the thing.

A: It’s not a thing. That’s the thing. [Laughs and Sangha laughs]

Q: What is it? This is what I’m saying. What is going on?

A: Yes…

Q: Then, where? Father, then where? Where am I?

A: Where are all things which are not things?

Q: Father! … [Sangha laughs]

A: Only ‘things’ are here, no?

Q: Yeah, so…

A: Where are the non-things?

Q: Can’t be somewhere else because I experience it Here Now…

A: Where? Where?

Q: Not even here (inside), not even here (outside) but where? Like, where?

A: Where? Where?
So, where are the non-things? Because here, there are only things.

Q: Yeah.

A:  Only things, outside the body. Things, inside the body also. Only things. So, where must the no-thing live?

Q: So, I can’t close my eyes and go inside and try to find out…

A: Like I say: Can you put no-thing in this glass? [Holds up a glass of water] This glass can have either ‘thing’ or ‘nothing’. But what about no-thing? The body is also like this glass only. How can the no-thing be there?

Q: Yeah.

A: Yeah, not possible. So, you’re not inside the physical body.

Q: No.

A: Not outside in this physical realm.

Q: No.

A: Then, where?

Q: Not in attention also.

A: Not in attention also. Where does attention come from?

Q: Not without attention also. This is what I’m trying to say. It doesn’t feel without attention also.

A: Okay. So, on this side [points outside] of attention is objects. What is on the other side?

Q: How do I tell you that? It is there.

A: You don’t have to tell me.

Q: But what is it, Father? Because it’s so…

A: It’s beyond any ‘what’…

Q: Yeah… But where? You can’t find it…

A: Beyond all ‘W’s’: What, where, who, when; why, especially!

Q: It’s a very strange thing, whatever it is.

A: And yet, it’s the most natural. Anything that you say is to try to put meaning to that which is beyond it.

When Kabir said ‘Build your house where nothing can be seen and this house should have no pillars’ …, what was he saying?

Q: This.

A: Actually, this is, in a way, your eternal home. You don’t have to build it.

Q: Yes. Wow. [Pause] What is this power of belief? Because I see (like now this became very clear randomly in the last few days) that there is no one here. And every time I check, there is no one here. Yet, I am here but I am not…

A: You were checking.

Q: Yes, I was checking and I’m not this body, I’m also not not this body.

A: Yes. Good.

Q: …then this thing; thoughts come, and a few thoughts I really believe in, and then I had all this confusion about emotion. Even that, you will say, it is so natural also; like moving the hand is like anger coming. But what is this power of belief then? Where, like I just want to know.

A: You want to believe something about the power of belief?

Q: No. I want I just want to know this from you because (don’t judge the ‘know’) [Sangha laughs) why? …, because when it happens, I should be able to see it.

A: So, your question is: What is this power of belief?

Q: Yeah.

A: So, you want a concept about it? Or you want to experiment with it?

Q: Experiment with it.

A: So, if I say ‘Suddenly your nose has turned green.’ Maybe because it’s coming from my mouth, it might seem like ‘Okay, I better start believing that’ or something. But if I say ‘You’re really getting this stuff!’ [Looks interested] So, what you did there, that is belief.

Q: [Laughs]

A: That’s why I said: Do you want a concept of it or do you want to experiment with it?
When I said ‘Your nose is turning green’ you just went … [Looks disinterested] When I said ‘You might be getting this stuff’ … [Looks very interested] Like that.

Q: …and every time, just sweep it off?

A: Yes…

Q: It’s like a game, Father!

A: It is a game; a bit, yes.

Q: A bit, why?

A: In the sense that it is a sub-game within this game of appearance anyway. It’s fundamentally irrelevant in any way, whether you spend ten-million lives fully identified with individuality and suffering or you experience one realm, one life, and you get your Buddhahood in that life. What does it matter to infinity?

Q: It’s objects, you say. It’s a game with the appearance of all these objects.

A: Like Ribhu says ‘In this tiny little thing called ‘seeing’ …, this game of delusion and freedom is being played.’

Q: What do you mean by seeing? What kind of seeing?

A: Yeah. Seeing all this. Seeing the seeing… [Smiles] [Silence]

‘What’s going on?’ is actually not a bad thing; like ‘I don’t know’. Unless you’re making a concept of ‘I don’t know’ like ‘Ah! I know now that ‘I don’t know’ is the best! I don’t know!’ …, like that. But just like the openness of the ‘I don’t know’ is very beautiful because it sets fire; it’s like a forest fire to all our concepts. And sometimes these opposites… like do you watch any sports ever?

Q: Yeah.

A: Like when you watch any sport, you notice the mind’s tendency to take a side. And you notice that you can just step back and just see, and that creates a sense of openness. But the natural affinity of the mind is to say ‘Ah! These ones are the ones I love. I love them!’ So, even if it’s Siberia playing against Austria or something …, you’re watching a match and suddenly you start noticing that you want to take sides. And this shows us something very clearly: that we got so used to positions, this way or that way, this way or that way. But when you step back from that and just allow the play to happen with no expectation of outcome, you’ve not taken a side so it doesn’t matter to you who wins or if it’s a draw or whatever.

Q: …but, Father like sometimes, like this side….

A: So, (I’ll finish this point) just in the same way, when you don’t take the side of even truth or untruth (like true and false, right or wrong) when you just step back and you see that there’s a certain sort of tension in this duality. This tension is very good because it cleans it up. It can feel uncomfortable. It can feel wobbly. ‘I want to know what it right! I want to know what is true or false.’ But if you just allow yourself to step back…

And sometimes, the wobbliness can happen but it’s fine because it’s doing a clean up job, shaking up everything that you have stored up. That’s why these days I am not rushing so much to give answers. Because sometimes that ‘What is it? What? This or this? This or this?’ …, now I don’t want to say because this shaking is very good. Its rattling out all your ideas. These whole five years (of Satsang) …, I can promise you, I can give you a definition for anything. But then you’ll make an idol out of that definition and then that will have to be demolished in some way.

I like this phase, in a way, what you’re conveying to me: this phase of ‘I see and I don’t see’ like ‘I know but I don’t know ‘ like ‘It’s clear but I’m confused; it’s clear but what’s going on?’ This kind of thing can only bring good things.

Q: In a way…

A: In a way, because then that can become a ‘thing’ otherwise. It can become a part of your compartment of knowing.

Q: Yeah. But it’s not possible to know.

A: You know that?

Q: No. But before, I felt all these words in a different way than now experientially.
A: Yes, exactly.

Q: I don’t know what’s going on. And I don’t know where I am. That’s the most weird thing, Father. I’m behind, front, here, there; where, where, where?

A: Nobody knows. Nobody knows where they are.

Q: Do you know?

A: Nobody knows. ‘Nobody’ doesn’t include me? [Laughs]

Where is a concept of ‘you’?
Q: Father…

A: Yes?

Q: You said yesterday ‘Where are you not?’

A: Yes. The same way you can say ‘Where are you?’ and you find ‘I can’t place it’ …, then: where are you not?

Can you say ‘I’m not here’? Or ‘I’m not anywhere’?

It’s popular in Advaita to say ‘I’m not in this world’. ‘I’m not in this world’ but your attention is here. How did your attention get here without you? That’s why I’m saying that the point is not to define ‘I’m here phenomenally or I’m not here phenomenally.’ The point is to discard this whole concept of where-ness, the whole concept of space.

Q: Wow. [Laughs]

A: Because space implies here and there. That’s how the conversation today started. Space implies what? That there is a here and there is a there. There is distance. There is somewhere.
Q: ‘Me’ and ‘that’.

A: Yeah, and very quickly ‘me’ and ‘that’. But if there is no such thing as here and there, then?
Like, this which we feel is there …, do we really know it’s there? Do we know anything about distance? Like you’re saying if we were just looking at moving energies and you put a device [points to his eyes] and it’s a lens where you’re seeing all these moving energies …, but actually it’s an empty room. Because that device is there, it can feel full …, but where are the actual moving images? On your eye. So, we can’t confirm any distance ever.
Like, what is the distance between two countries in a dream?
In a dream, what is the distance between two countries?
It’s only a seeming-distance. It’s not real.

Q: [Laughs]
A: Although it can seem like a very simple exercise to clean up the mind a bit, to not know (‘To know one thing is to know too much’, this kind of thing) then you see how much is notional. I have to say: time, space; all is notional ‘I’m sitting here, I’m going there, I’m being this way’ …  all ideas.

[Silence]
The thing is, the cat that came for a bowl of milk can struggle with this. Most of you know the cat story. The cat that came for a bowl of milk called Nirvana, Freedom, Liberation, says ‘Come on! I wanted to be the enlightened cat.’ Now we’re saying ‘No cat no bowl, no time, no space, no liberation, no bondage, nothing.’ All these tricks. Many of you will feel like you’re being brain- washed. In a way, that’s true. You’re being washed of all the garbage that you gave stored up in your mind. What if ‘mind-wash’ was a good word? See, this is what I am saying. ‘It’s only human.’ Like that. Suppose somebody asks you ‘What do you come to Satsang for?’ … ‘Oh, I come to get mind washed.’ [Pretends to be shocked] ‘What!?’ … ‘No, it’s a very good thing.’ … ‘’What?! Be careful.’ What assigns those meanings to those words? We all live by that, no? ‘But just make sure you’re not being brain-washed.’ This kind of thing. Because it has a certain meaning. What if all these things were just… [Waves his hand as in ‘nothing’]

Q: Just here.

A: Yeah. You know that, usually, when I start by saying ‘imagine’ it’s just so that you can start feeling a bit comfortable and you realize very quickly that ‘I don’t have to imagine this’.

Q: It’s very fascinating, Father; we make this ‘me’. How do we make it? And where is it?

A: How we make it? Not ‘why?’… ‘Why?’ is the most popular one. ‘Why this world has come? Why did we come here?’

Q: As in, how have we made it? How we have made it is pretty crazy because it’s not there.

A: Just like a dream. Imagine that this is a dream.

[Chuckles] (You’ll never imagine that. Nobody day-dreams this. Just a super-nerd boy sitting in front of you in spectacles telling you all this stuff. [Laughs] Some strange sci-fi spirituality, in a way.)

Q: It is like that. I fully feel like it’s a dream. You know, I fully feel like it’s a dream but I don’t know what’s going on.

A: See, nobody knows where they are. Nobody knows what’s going on. [Sangha laughs] Your main question is: ‘What’s going on?’ Nobody knows.

All answers are fraud about this. Even ‘Leela’ [the play, maya] is a fraud answer because (if you want a ‘because’) nothing is going on; nothing is happening.

What is going on when nothing has happened?

It’s like saying: Where are you if there nothing such as space?

Q: Wait. Wait. No. No. Wait.

A: Bas, bas! [Enough!]

Q: What is going on if nothing is happening? [Silence] You know, I’m surprised at how this sounds also true.

A: Papaji said ‘Nothing ever happened.’

Q: If there is no ‘where’ and ‘when’ and ‘who’ then how can anything happen?

A: But not even that inference is needed.

Q: No, but this is what I experience also.

A: In notionless existence, ‘happen’ doesn’t mean anything. Or ‘not happen’ also doesn’t mean anything. [Silence]

This mouth is not saying anything. [Indicates her speaking] What about that inside ‘mouth’? [i.e., thoughts] Is it saying something or not?

Q: It is trying to figure it out.

A: Figure it out. [Smiles]

Q: Why the thoughts?

A: Why thoughts?

Q: The thoughts are coming; not coming in the body, they are appearing somewhere. It is sensed as if it is appearing in this space.

A: Why? [Smiles]

Q: It is really saying this. What do I do? It doesn’t stop.

[Silence]

A: [Whispers a quote]: “Man got to walk, man got to fly. Man got to ask himself ‘Why, why, why?’” [Chuckles]

The shorter version [of the answer] is: Consciousness [is why].

Q: I do not have any ‘why’s.’ It is you who ask me what it is saying.

A: Yeah, what is it saying. Yeah, tell me; that one.

Q: Yeah, I am just saying… [Smiles] Yeah. This figurer is so full-power ‘on’ …, it is amazing.

A: Somehow, it can also feel like ‘Ahh, I am figuring out that I can’t figure it out.’ The figurer also gets a bit excited about this. Like ‘In today’s Satsang, I’m really figuring this out…, but I can’t figure it out!’ [Smiles]

Q: Exactly like this. Exactly like this. Wow, Father.

A: Many times, when I was talking about this checker guy, it is like ‘Yeah, I really have such a strong checker guy!’ Yeah, yeah: That’s the one. [Chuckles] That’s the one. [Sangha Laughs]

Q: Full commentary, Father. The mind can’t give you answers.

A: Yeah, exactly. [Chuckles]

Q: But do not listen to your mind.

A: Listen to me, because mind cannot give answers. [Smiles]

Q: The mind would not be able to figure it out.

A: Correct.

Q: Why do you even try? Let go, let go. [Smiles]

A: ‘Let go, let go.’ [Laughs] Actually, it’s like ‘Hold me, hold me!’ [Chuckles] But the words saying are ‘Let go, let go.’

Q: Yeah. [Smiles]

Q: It’s something I’ve wondered often: what is the ‘seeing’? Not the seeing that you are referring to, but the physical seeing is not happening. It’s just …, it’s something else and I’m not sure what that is.

A: This is good. So, just in the way that we see that if nothing has inherent meaning as Guruji [Sri Mooji] says, then the term ‘meaning’ itself doesn’t have meaning. Either meaning or meaningless itself doesn’t have meaning.  In the same way, if you see that ‘Actually, that which I have been calling my senses, there are no senses’ then the term ‘senses’ itself also loses its meaning. [Silence]

A: Of course. So, without the concept of seeing, then there is no ‘here to there’, for sure. So, there are no eyes. Okay? [Chuckles] There are no eyes. If there are no eyes, then this is seeing itself.  (I’m just contemplating.)

A: It is beautiful. That is why I say that you can’t infer your way to this. You can’t say ‘If this, therefore that’ because that will be another inference from the intellect. Now, empty of intellect or concepts, this is It. Even ‘This is It’ is just a pointing. If you have nothing to figure out…

Q: Then this is It.

A: Just to look at that a bit more. Now, we have looked through the concept of seeing itself. Then it doesn’t matter. If it itself is not meaningful; then whether couch is seeing or eyes are seeing, all that is irrelevant.

Q: So, what is happening or how it is happening is pointless, in a sense.

A: Yes. It’s not even pointless; because ‘pointless; can become like a nihilistic position. The meaninglessness or pointlessness can become a very strong position also. It is not even that. The point and pointlessness both are meaningless.

Q: Yes. Actually what I meant was that to try and to figure out is pointless.

A: Exactly. But what I am saying again, to what you’re saying, is that to try and figure out is nothing. If you say that ‘It is pointless’ then it also becomes like ‘Don’t try to figure anything out, it is pointless.’ Or ‘It has a point.’ So, we go from ‘It does have a point, I can figure it out’ to ‘No, what is the point? I can’t.’  It’s out of that duality; because both of these can be branches you will hang on. ‘Yes, yes. I am figuring it out. Father has given me a very good contemplation. I will figure it out.’ So, that can be. Or ‘I have figured out that nothing has a point. It is all pointless.’ So, then again, you can hang from there. But is neither of those.

Q: So, what I am is before saying both those things.

A: Now, are you figuring that out?

Q: No, I am seeing that. I see that. I exist before the thought of point or pointlessness.

A: Yes. What trouble do you have there?

Q: There’s no trouble here.

A: Can you come out of there?

Q: No. I can’t come out of there.

A: So, when you are out of that duality of this and that, here and there, then …? [Chuckles]

Ananta: [Reading the introduction to the Ribhu Gita*]

“The Ribhu Gita is one of the first books read by Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi in Tiruvannamalai, after attaining self-realization at Madurai. Sri Bhagavan and the disciples would sit up especially after dinner reciting the Ribhu Gita, each reading a verse by turn. The reading continues for nearly two hours at a stretch. He would say ‘These readings from Ribhu Gita are as good as Samadhi. It does not matter if one understands the meaning or not, yet the result can be experienced.’ It appears from Sri Bhagavan’s words that if there is a book the reading of which can attune one’s mind to a transcendental state, that is the Ribhu Gita. What more is there to say?”

Ananta: We were just having some fun with this yesterday and we enjoyed this part very much.

This is Chapter 8, page 145:

Ribhu says: “I shall explain to you the hollowness of the world, which is akin to the horn of a hare.”

Ananta: So, that is ‘horn of’ not this hair but the rabbit: H-A-R-E.

Someone in Sangha says: No. Hare’s don’t have horns.

Ananta: That is the point; it does not have. That is the point (if there is a point).

Ribhu: “I shall explain to you the hollowness of the world, which is akin to the horn of a hare. This is hard to attain in all worlds. Listen with an alert mind.

Whatever trace of this world one hears or one sees of it, the from that is ‘seen’ and the form of the ‘seer’ are all like the horn of a hare.

Birds, water, fire, air, space, mind, intellect, ego, and the transcendental light are all like the horn of a hare.

Destruction, birth, truth, the world and heavenly systems, merit, sin, victory, and delusion are all like the horn of a hare.

Lust, anger, greed, discussion, pride, delirium, infatuation, steadfastness…”

Ananta: Now comes the fun part.

Ribhu: “Guru, disciple, teaching and such are all like the horn of a hare.”

Ananta: I like how we put it after lust, anger, greed, disillusion. [Chuckles]

Ribhu: “I, you, the world etcetera. The beginning, the end, the middle, the past, the future and the present are all like the horn of a hare.

The gross body, the subtle body, the cause and the effect and what little of ‘seen’ and ‘seeing’ is there are all like the horn of a hare.”

Ananta: What little of ‘seen’ and ‘seeing’… [Chuckles] Whatever little we are seeing, all of these little, tiny things, we make such a big deal of it, na? … are all like the horn of a hare.

Ribhu: “The enjoyer, the objects and the enjoyment, ideal and non-dual characteristic, tranquility, inquiry, happiness are all like the horn of a hare.

Ethical regulation, physical restraints, breath control, and discourses on such things, movement, motion, thoughts are all like the horn of a hare.

Ears, eyes, body, lineage, secrecy, inertia, Hari, Shiva, beginning, end, longing for emancipation, all these are all like the horn of a hare.

The organs of knowledge, the five subtle senses, the group of organs of action, waking, dream, sleep and relevant states are all like the horn of a hare.

The twenty-four tatvas, the group of four spiritual practices, homologues, and heterologous groups are all like the horn of a hare.

All the world, all the Beings, all cultures, those with true significance, all kinds of ignorance and all types of learning are all like the horn of a hare.

All castes, all communities, all holy abodes, and holy water, all the Vedas, all the Shastras are all like the horn of a hare.

All types of bondage, all ways of liberation, all wisdom pertaining to the Lord, all periods of time, all instruction are all like the horn of a hare.

All existence, all actions, all types of association with the wise, all duality, all perception of non-existence are all like the horn of a hare.

All Vedanta, all theories, all conclusions on the significance of the Shastras, the nature of true existence of all Beings are all like the horn of a hare.

Whatever little is comprehended, whatever world appears, whatever is heard from the Guru are all like the horn of a hare.

Whatever is thought by the mind, whatever is willed anytime, whatever is decided by the intellect are all like the horn of a hare.

Whatever is conveyed by speech, wherever meaningful talk is uttered, whatever is grasped by the sense organs are all like the horn of a hare.

Whatever object is renounced, whatever is heard or seen, ones own and others are all like the horn of a hare.

Whatever shines on account of reality, identity and essence and whatever is imagined by the mind are all like the horn of a hare.

Whatever is determined as the self, whatever is said to be eternal and whatever is investigated by the mind are all like the horn of a hare.”

Ananta: I will repeat again.

Ribhu: “Whatever is determined as the self, whatever is said to be eternal and whatever is investigated by the mind are all like the horn of a hare.

Shiva destroys ever, Vishnu protects the three worlds and verily, the creator Brahma builds the worlds, all these are all like the horn of a hare.

Whatever is said to be the soul, whatever speech uttered and statements like ‘this is life cycle’ all these are all like the horn of a hare.

Whatever is there in the Puranas, whatever established in the Vedas, the truth of the entire Upanishad, are all like the horn of a hare.”

Ananta: Now the best one.

Ribhu: “Whatever told to you in this chapter is all but a horn of a hare.”

Ananta: [Chuckles] ‘Whatever told to you in this chapter is all but a horn of a hare.’

Ribhu: “But he who hears this secret himself becomes Brahman.”

~ ~ ~

.

*Ananta is reading from: The Ribhu Gita, 2009

Sixth Asma of Sri Siva Rahasyam

By Anil Sharma and Lingeswara Rao

The need to ascribe both: either meaning or meaninglessness, is very prevalent in a way to the human condition. We have to put everything in the box of either ‘It has this meaning’ or the box of ‘Oh, this is meaningless.’ It’s these boxes which we supposedly have used to answer the question ‘Why?’ which have built a box around us in a way. [Chuckles] And one of the most favorite ones, in fact behind all ‘Why?’ in some way is the ‘Why me?’ … ‘Why me?’ … Or ‘Why not me?’ also. [Laughter]

From our limited perspective, we cannot fathom the magnificence of this. We cannot even fathom what ‘to exist’ means. What does it mean to exist or not? But we want to fathom a lot after existence: ‘How do I do something? Why does this happen?’ All of that is after Existence.

So, we don’t know the basic foundation from our limited position as the mind, but we try to gather a lot of answers. And a collection of all of these answers is what we call ‘a person’. [Chuckles] What is a person? Just a collection of all these answers that we’ve use to define ourself in some way. That which we call a belief system, the conditioning, is what? Just what we think we know. Isn’t it?

Then we start to believe that it is our experience and that’s why we feel like that is valid. But if you really check on your experience, without trying to get to an answer, you will see that it’s not true.

Your experience is not that of separation.

It is not that of separation, it is not that of limitation, it is not that of individuality.

And what I say after this might sound very unpopular, might not be the best sounding words, but:

It is our attachment to our version of the Truth.

Then we buy these ideas of ‘It is my truth; it is my truth’ and that claim is just a defense of that which you are actually unsure about; that is why you have to keep claiming ‘It is my truth, it is my truth.’ This. Because the ‘me’ at the center of it is usually just a made-up thing, a made-up bundle of concepts. Like we were talking about all the answers, all the beliefs you have, all the things you think you know (‘my truth’). So, when the mind couches in these terms and says ‘But this is my truth and we are human after all.’ You see? These kinds of things. It’s all lies but they seem very attractive.

What is your actual experience or insight? You looked and looked. Did you find a human sitting there? And yet, these concepts are attractive; not just in spirituality but in all of humanity in a way.

And anything that seems to be then contrary to the notional ideas of separation and individuality then ‘That is just some sort of a bypass: avoidance. That is just some sort of avoidance’. But actually, that’s why I have been saying this over and over again that ‘The only way I can find of avoiding ‘What Is’ is to put my label, to put a claim of my knowing, on top of it’.

So, how can it be then that to remain notionless is avoidance?

How can it that be to meet ‘What Is’ (in this moment naked) is avoidance?

To add a fig leaf of a notion would be avoidance. [Laughs] How can it be that we are meeting it completely open, without any defenses of any labels, and that is avoidance? That is basically just saying that ‘You have to believe some conclusion from the mind’ …, this idea that ‘Unless you buy some conclusion from the mind, you are in avoidance of something.’ This is just made-up by the mind itself.

Because I am saying: Meet even this mind completely, fully. But check on what it is saying; see if it actually is pointing to the Reality even of your phenomenal experience. See if it is actually pointing to something called a tree? See if there is something actually called a ‘tree’? It’s just a name, it’s just a word. Everything is so alive and unique that we cannot meet life in that way. When we have a label for it, then it’s put into a box of concepts that ‘I know what it is. This is ‘tree.’

So, we come to a point where we are tired even of the most fancy notions; the most fancy notions like ‘I am using them to live my life.’ There comes a point where you see that “I don´t want to use anything at all. If life wants to live, then life will live.”

Q: Father, can you say an example of a fancy notion?

A: Yeah, like this, that ‘I’m just living my truth because I’m human after all.’ Whatever you feel is still attractive and truthful to you. Whatever you are allowing without investigation. Whatever you’re just buying without investigation and especially that which, the minute you want to investigate into it, the mind really starts to … [Lifts his arms and makes strong gestures] Like that, you see?

And in these kinds of investigations, the mind will say ‘But that is going too far, that is going too far. After all, you came to Satsang to become an enlightened person. You wanted to be a Sage. Now look at what has happened to you.’ [Chuckles] These kinds of things. ‘You wanted just freedom; you wanted to have a happy life which is free.’ You see? Like that. And this one [the Sage] is saying [Referring to a reading from the Ribhu Gita]: ‘All of this is just the horn of a hare.’ [You’re like]: ‘What is going on?’ You see? Like ‘This is going too far. I think I need a break.’ These kinds of things.

If you are open enough to investigate:

What is it that we are defending?

And if it is the Truth, why does it need a defense?

If it is the truth why does it need to be defended?

Because the Truth will survive. If you need to put a wall around it, then what must there be? Something that in your heart of hearts you know is not true. That´s why you had better [Makes a gesture to keep distance] put up enough defense mechanisms.

And sometimes very subtle things like this one had shared with me, that ‘This has stayed with me’ in a sense: ‘Okay, but really, let’s get real. Let’s get real.’ Okay, so what then? Are we just making things up in Satsang every day about non-separation, non-duality? All of this is just fancy talk? Because ‘Ultimately, when it comes down to it, let’s get real.’ What to say? [Chuckles]

Exactly the same thing but in different words is ‘Let’s be practical now. Let’s get practical.’ But actually, what we are saying is ‘Let’s get real.’ Because if you did not feel that that had a position in reality, you would not want to get practical. [Chuckles]

So, all of this is duality. We can get stuck in real, practical, yes, no, truth, false, up, down; all these kinds of things. But it is all in denial of your actual experience, which is so alive and empty of limitations right now. Right Now! It is only your trying to hold it, grasp it, cling at it, try to put it in a box then it seems illusive and then you get frustrated. You see?  But you don´t need to hold it in a box. It is always Here for you. [Chuckles]

It’s like, if you are a painter and ten years you’ve spent on one painting. What were you painting? You were painting the sun; you are coming out everyday trying to capture it beautifully. [Makes a gesture of painting with hands] Then after ten years you get so attached to that painting, and I am saying ‘Let’s go, look at the sun. It’s right here.’ And our impulse can be ‘But I have it, I have it as my painting’ or ‘I have it as my essay’ or ‘I have it as some pictorial, some conceptual version of even the sun.’

So, if we can’t capture even a phenomenal appearance in our paintings, in our concepts, how can we capture the Is-ness, the Reality?

You are right that to understand that this is the wrong device, this is the wrong mechanism, is a beautiful recognition. And when we are empty of trying to grasp or cling to these devices, then That in which even the light of the sun shines …, That is apparent.

Yesterday we were having a discussion and we were saying that when we say ‘apparent’ I’m not saying that ‘That is an appearance.’ [Chuckles] Apparent means: it’s clear, it’s obvious, it’s natural. That is the way in which I’m using the term. Otherwise, what some of you are feeling is that what he is saying that ‘In your notion-less-ness, the Truth should come as if it’s an appearance to me. It should be objectively perceived, that this is it. I should be able to point to it and say: This is it.’ But it is not that. It’s before the notion ‘This is it’ or ‘not it.’

Now, because the habit is that (for ten years, suppose) then you will want to add to your painting based on even this. You can say ‘Ah, now I can make it better! Now I got it, now I got it. Now I can modify my painting.’ And half of it is like a void and the other half is like the blazing sun, or something like that. And we want to represent this again as if this is the Truth. But it isn’t.

So, whatever representation you might have, at best, can point to your experience of the Truth, but cannot in itself represent accurately the Truth.

[Reading from chat]: “Beloved Father, where are these emotions coming from? Also, who is having these, because inside there is no ‘me’? There is only a Presence not in time and space. But the arising of emotions pertaining to an individual are very fascinating to watch. It is like a magic show going on because I am nowhere to be found and yet all these appear.”

Now, even in the arising of what we call emotions there is not yet an individual. Even in the arising of emotions there is not yet an individual. So, a little child also experiences fear and they start crying and again they get entertained and forget about the fear; gone, they start laughing. So, these appearances of emotions are also not yet individualistic. It’s only when they get into the duality of ‘me’ and ‘mine’, only when we supply them with belief that ‘This means something, that this is what I am going through’ do these even emotional appearances seem to be used as evidence for a separation, evidence for an individuality.

So, let all things come and go. But the minute we start to put a ‘mine’ to it (‘this is mine’) it implies that there is a separate ‘me’.

So, ‘Because inside there is no me’ you say ‘there is only a Presence not in time and space. But the arising of emotions pertaining to an individual are very fascinating to watch. It is like a magic show going on because I am nowhere to be found and yet all these appear.’

Yes. All of these appearances are happening and the perceiving of them is happening and yet no ‘me’ has ever truly been born.

[Reading from chat]: “Father, also it’s really amazing me, each and every moment, that this body walks and talks and does everything but inside it, no one lives. Yet, nothing is living without it also. It is so very fascinating. It’s such a relief to not find myself in the old ways. Yet, it is so disorienting. It’s a funny feeling to walk and not find anyone walking.”

This is very good. Very good. Actually, we’re all starting to realize that it is such a ludicrous idea; such a ludicrous idea that some entity was living inside this body, only there …, that the ‘me’ as an entity or an objective creature was living inside this body. So, all these versions; living inside this body, it is this body itself …, you’re finding that the body boundary does not really contain You. But when you believe it, it does give you the idea that ‘I am spatially limited, constrained.’

All our notions of security, relationship, health of the body; all of these things come. When we start out, our idea of freedom is related to the body, that this body should get freedom. [Smiles] So, I want to tell you that the body of the Master, the body of the Sage, is just like any other body. At one level, it is just an appearance. If you want to give it more credence, then you can say ‘Atoms and molecules like everything else.’

So, don’t feel like when you get Self-recognition, it is about getting something for this body. It is not like best version of ice cream you’ll ever eat or something, which is like ‘Some experience should come. That will be the best taste that I’ve ever had and in a sensory way.’ [Chuckles] But it is a strange non-perceptual experience. (Well, forget that.) A simpler way to say it is: ‘It is the only non-phenomenal experience that you can say you had.’ But you can see that these words do not really capture what is being said. Whether you call it experience of Shiva, whether you call it experience of emptiness, whether you call it the experience of the Self, it’s a non-experience experience. You can’t say what you saw.

So now, we can say that ‘I can’t find a ‘me’ in this body.’ You can’t find a ‘me’ inside this body and you cannot find a ‘me’ outside this body. Then where must it be?

If not in the body and not outside the body, then where?

[Contemplative Silence]

Where are You?

Outside the body?

[Reading from chat]: “It is no place I can point to. It is just not point-able; it’s position-less.”

As what …, are you there?

So, if where You are is not a place… (for every ‘thing’ you need a place, no?) then, as what are you there?

[Silence]

We can ask ‘Where are You’?

And in the same way, you can ask ‘Where am I not?’

Where are You not?

Now, let me give you some fuel for this inquiry. Anything that you perceive, it’s because your attention is on it. Now, how can your attention go somewhere where you are not? Actually, we can neither negate it nor say it positively. We can say ‘Where am I?’ and we can say ‘I am not in time and space, I am not an object here. This is clear.’

Then I ask you the question in a different way: ‘Where are you not?’ And you say ‘I am not in this.’ But then, how come your attention is here? How come your perception is here?

So, then, what does that make You?

Q: You are the substratum of everything. You are the substratum of everything. And perception.

A: Yes. So, in the perception, who is there?

Q: I am.

A: You are. I am the substratum, and then the of layer perception is there on top of that. Now, this perception is whose?

Q: Perception is also mine.

A: That which is perceived is who?

Q: That is also me.

A: That is also me. [Smiles] So, you are the … (in a way, they say) ‘You are the alpha and the omega.’ You are not just the substratum. [Smiles] But the substratum seems more substantive because it doesn’t come and go. In that way, we can say ‘That is my reality.’ But it is not to inject a duality in to this and say ‘Okay, I am just that and not that.’ (Not that it is not useful initially because we have been so attached just the idea of just being that.) So, when you see that ‘Okay, I am not that’ actually, what you are seeing is ‘I am not JUST that.’ Another way to say the ‘neti, neti’ [‘not that, not that’] would be that instead of saying ‘I am not that’ you could say ‘I am not JUST that.’ [Smiles]

Because clearly, there is no separation between the perception and its objects also. Like this camera is here. Is there any separation between you and it? At least, the minute you say ‘camera’ it denotes a kind of separation. But, you know what I mean, right? The room, the tree, the sounds …, nothing divides Me in Reality. Then we are not so easily able to say that ‘I am this or I am that.’ We are not able to say. Even the ‘I Am That’ seems to fall away.

You see, this is beautiful, because when you say ‘It is both Me and not me’ therefore, the term ‘Me’ itself now means nothing. Like, if everything is and is not it, there is no meaning left in the term. This is ‘Advaita’ actually.

Then it is not ultimately that ‘I found this’ (finding me) but that ‘I saw that whatever I might define it ‘as’ does not convey truth of it.’ Therefore, there is no need or use of this term itself. And it is this label which has caused so much trouble. Whether you call it small ‘i,’ whether you call it ‘me,’ it is just a label.

From this place, if you say ‘I found myself now’ it is fine.

If you say ‘I lost myself now’ it is fine.

Many will say ‘Ah, I found the Truth about what I Am.’

Others will say ‘I lost the sense of ‘me’ which I always thought was here.’

And both are the same actually.

[Reading from chat]: “Father, many times the notions and the belief in them are hiding in the feelings or emotions as subtle objects. What to do then?”

Forget this. Because this is an overuse of the intellect. You just have to deal with your next thought, that’s all. Even that you don’t have to really deal with but because our habit is to deal with them, to pick them up and to apply them as if they have meaning, as if they are true …, so, when I say you only have to deal with your next thought, it is that you only have to allow it to come and go. Then you don’t have to worry about the subtlety, you don’t have to pick up any special project. It is not complicated actually, what I’m saying. It is only mind which is complex. It will make projects for you where none exist. ‘How to deal with my subconscious?’… this kind of thing… ‘But I’m only conscious of this, what about that subconscious?’ and ‘Then will I get to the super-conscious?’ All these kinds of things; it is best to forget about them. Don’t make levels in your Consciousness. Just: You are the most natural, free Being at this very moment …., unless you pick up any notion, idea about yourself. Whatever needs to reveal itself, whatever becomes clearer and clearer, will unfold in its own way.

[Reading a new chat]: “You started Satsang today with ‘Are there any answers?’ I really woke up with an answer today, Father. [Chuckles] If one is really not here and doesn’t pick up any personal links, God can really have some fun. Peace, love, the natural state of What Is.”

Yes. [Silence] It happens in Satsang like this (in life like this actually) that there seem to be some themes, there seem to be some representations which are playing out in a consistent way. Like she said she woke up with an answer this morning. In Satsang I was joking ‘Do you have any answer?’ Now, it might seem to all of you that I am very opposed to words or something like that; but I’m not. Words are as neutral or meaningless as anything else. If, in a sense, I’m opposed to something in the play, it is opposed to your giving them more meaning or reality than they deserve. Like when you pick up an answer and say ‘This must be it’ then know that if it has an opposite (if what you feel is the Truth has an opposite) then that cannot be the Truth. Because the Truth is so all-pervasive, all encompassing. That’s why it cannot be represented in this way or that way.

That’s why the Sage said ‘It is both empty and full and it is neither empty nor full.’ Why are the Sages speaking like this? I think it was sage Yajnavalkya who said ‘For those who are very attached to the changeful nature of the world, then those would be advised by the Sages to find that which is the unchanging. And for those who get stuck with this idea of the unchanging, they will be reminded that everything is constantly changing.’ Why is the Sage speaking like this? It is only so that (same thing) whatever representation, painting, you have, that can be dropped. Whatever version of Truth you believe is the ultimate (that ‘I have found it’) …, that can be kept aside. Because the Truth is actually way, way simpler than that and our mind cannot grasp it. Just as this hand cannot grasp the space. [Silence] These negations cannot grasp it; yet, at some point, they are useful: ‘It is not this, it is not this, it is not this, it is not this.’ But we cannot make idols out of these negations also.

Q: Does that mean that memory has no role to play at all?

A: ‘Memory’ is what?

Q: I know you, say ‘It’s false, made up.’

A: No, no, no, right now I am not saying that; I am saying ‘it’s an image.’ Now, that image, is it past or future?

Q: It’s appearing in the present, of something happened in the past.

A: Now, right now there is no memory that appears. In the future, there might be an image which comes which seems to represent something from the past. But we have seen that, that claim is many times invalid.

Q: So, does it mean that if we had some experience with someone, and when they come we should totally forget that experience?

A: Could you?

Q: We can, if we try. But wouldn’t that also be a conditioning?

A: If you could meet every moment fresh without any condition, not even the condition that ‘Ah, he did this to me, so I better forget it’ or something like that.

Q: Yes, that’s what I was talking about.

A: Just naturally.

Q: So, it has a small role, memory has a small role, is it?

A: Everything has a small role, actually [Chuckles] in the sense that small or big actually doesn’t apply in this play of appearances.

Q: Because from what you described, here it was understood that no memory at all, no past at all. Is that what you’re saying?

A: I am saying that ‘What is it except an idea, a notion?’ Like what is the difference between past and future?

Q: Yes, they are notions.

A: So, if they are just notions, then even these notions of whether they are meaningful or meaningless don’t apply, no?

Q: That mind cannot understand.

A: What can it understand? [Laughs]

Q: It wants an answer whether it should forget, just totally forget or completely remember. I think that is the question.

A: Neither you can do actually.

Q: Yeah, but it wants to know.

A: The whole paradigm itself is flawed. Because ‘Should I do this?’ or ‘Should I do that?’ both are itself flawed in a way. Everything that the mind understands is only a version of the Truth; it’s never the Truth itself. And no version of the Truth is actually true.

Q: So, I remember Guruji [Sri Mooji] stating Ramakrishna Paramhansa’s one statement, he says that ‘The intellect is like a stream of water. If you dig your hand too deep you will only get mud, but if you just get little bit on the surface then you will be able to drink water.’

A: So, what’s on the surface is that you understand now that you can’t understand. [Chuckles] That is also intellect, no? You have the notion that ‘No notions are true’.

Q: Yes. Maybe.

A: So, all of this is also concept, all of this is also intellect. But they do not become conditions for you because they play the role of clean-up, in a sense. You are not digging into the mud of individuality with these. Now, after you have a few sips what should happen? If you dig in too much, then it’s muddy. You can have some shallow sips and when you’ve had the shallow sips, then what should happen?

Q: Then thirst is quenched.

A: Okay, is it quenched or not?

Q: Yeah. To this the mind says that you are relying on past or memory or whatever.

A: How do you know whether you had enough sips or not?

Q: I think that suffering is the biggest indicator. You know …

A: That you still need more? Or that you had enough? [Laughs]

Q: Had enough, of course. [Laughter] So, here it was taking up this idea ‘No use of intellect at all’…, the way your statement was understood.

A: Yeah, but thing is that, that is also intellect, no?

Q: Yeah.

A: [Smiles] You see? And I say this almost every day, that the mind only knows these opposites.

Q: Yeah.

A: It says ‘Intellect; yes, yes’ or ‘Intellect; no, no.’ Neither. Meaning or meaningless? Neither. Doer or non-doer? Neither. Nothing is applicable.

Q: Yes, the one who is trying to understand cannot understand.

A: That’s why I am saying …

Q: This has to be …

A: Understood. [Laughs] This can be like the shallow sip, in a way.

Q: Yeah.

A: So, that’s why I am saying: just like you can’t measure the weight of the song you heard last evening, in the same way the mind cannot capture Your Reality, the intellect cannot fathom the Truth of this, the Truth ‘What Is’.

A: Where is the one that was here 5 minutes ago?

Q 1: If it is fresh, it is here every moment.

A: If it is fresh. [Chuckles] This is a very good. This is what I have been looking at also.

So, suppose this is Ananta 1. [Holds up index finger] Now this one which has the 1 on the fingers is the Ananta 1. Okay? Now, [Holds up also middle finger] that has changed and this is Ananta 2. You know, actually, this body has changed, the cells have changed, many things have transformed in that much time. Now, this one is here. [Ananta 2] Where is Ananta 1?

Q 2: It is gone.

A: Gone? Then who came into the future?

Now, there is Ananta 3? [Holds up also ring finger] So, where is Ananta 2? It’s only in the idea of the past. Did that one come into the future? No. This one is completely fresh. Like you said it is completely fresh. So, this one [Ananta 3] has now gone to the death of the past or to the idea of the past.

So, are things coming to go into the future? Or are things coming so they can die in the past?

Like we can have this idea that ‘I’m coming and this one is moving into the future.’ But is this true? The this one will never see that which we call the future. It is just confined to the grave of the past. You see?

So, this idea of moving and stillness doesn’t really apply to Reality.

As long as we keep defining ourselves in these terms, as long as we keep separating and saying ‘Okay, that is the Absolute perspective. What about me?’ …, we can do that at times but the thing is that all of these are just made up ideas.

Now, where are Ananta 1, 2, 3 and 4? Something was different about all of them in terms of the manifest appearance and yet, in reality, nothing was different.

You might feel that you’re resting on a notion, but actually it is not that. You rest when you’re empty of notions. Because we got so habituated into this kind of play that it felt like ‘I must know what this is, I must know what’s happening’ and this idea that ‘I will come to some truth notionally’ …, we keep struggling to find that. It is probably in this context that Papaji [Sri Poonjaji] was speaking when he said ‘End the search.’ Come to an end to this kind of trying to grasp like this.

Q: Right Now, I’m not seeking. I’m checking with you, is it true?

A: No. [Laughs]

Q:No?

A: Because you’re seeking an answer to that, no? All our seeking is like this. Our seeking is just like that. Like, we are seeking confirmation of something but our Being is more naturally present than that. So, when you say that ‘Can I check with you whether I am seeking now or not?’ in that need of an answer is the seeking.

Like I have been asking you: What does an answer give you? It can only have two purposes, in a way. The purpose with which it’s being spoken here is so that it can be used to throw everything else. But the purpose in which it can be used is to fill up a conceptual gap that you might think you have. Like you have this gap of ‘I don’t know.’ Now, if I give you an answer then it can seem to fill up that tension of not-knowing. But I want that tension to expand and to blow everything else which is there. (This is also explaining too much, actually.) [Chuckles] This tension of ‘I don’t know’ it can just expand and blow everything. As you come to the broadness of your not-knowing, it will blow everything that you think is true. But if I give you a conceptual balm for it then you will put it over there and say ‘I’m done, actually’ or something like this. But the ‘I don’t know’ is much more auspicious that way.

Like, if you don’t know anymore whether you’re seeking or not, what’s wrong with that? That is better actually because otherwise you can make a claim; you can proclaim or you can doubt. This is the primal need that I am talking about. This is the primal need of individualizing; like to make a claim, to be able to substitantally say ‘This is how it is.’

A fancy Satsang-way of saying it could be:

True meaning will only be discovered when everything you think is [discovered to be] meaningless.

(But even this we can put it in our conceptual box.)

You know why some of you are struggling? You are struggling because for so many years you felt that you’re being lead to an ultimate goal, although it was always said that ‘The ultimate is the starting point itself’ and yet the feeling becomes, more and more, that ‘I’m coming to the Absolute, I’m coming to Awareness’ whereas I kept saying:

You’ve never left the destination.

I realized that many of us had started using the concept of Satsang itself to make a journey out of this. That’s why maybe in the expression here something changed and became deconstructive about even the expression of Satsang. Because although the words were being said:

There is no journey. You are the Self.

these words themselves were being used to make a journey out of it.

Now, I am not giving you the scope for that. I’ll just push you out of this duality; even if it is wobblyness, even if it is confusion, anger, sometimes frustration. Why frustration? Frustration only means (can only come because) you’re feeling that the bag of concepts you collected is now worthless. It is not about Reality. Frustration is only because you feel like ‘Oh! You’ve struggled so much to this. You had such experiences, you found this, and you found that’ …, and I’m saying:

Everything in your story is just story.

The Truth is Here Now, naked.

Whether I say it in the form of ‘Now. Now. Now. Now. Now.’ or I say it in the form of ‘Forget it. You don’t know anything.’ …, it is the same thing.

This is an important topic because to make the claim that we know what something is, including to know it is a problem, then becomes like an avoidance of just ‘What Is’.

Now, it may sound like in Satsang that when I am asking you to drop the labels of it, it can feel like ‘Oh, it can’t be that easy. This is just some sort of avoidance or bypass.’ But it is the label or  the idea that we know ‘what this is’ which is the actual avoidance? Because once we call something a problem, then what happens is we put in the box of all the previous problems, everything else we have define as problems, and how we’ve dealt with it and ‘This is what it is’ …, in the meeting of it from the reference with the past. But, without that label, it is meeting it for what it is.

Now the mind plays the trick and it tells you that ‘Ah, to not label it is an avoidance. You’re trying to avoid your problems.’ [Smiles] But it is not that. It is the labeling of something and presuming that it is something similar to what happened in the past (‘I know what it is, I can define it in this way’) that is the actual avoiding of meeting it naked, meeting it completely open.

And in our definition of it, not only do we end up not defining it but most problematically, we end of defining ourself.

[Smiles] Are you hearing what I am saying?

If you already have called something a ‘problem’ then we can’t meet it in a full way. Just like if you define somebody ‘This is a problem character’ you will never hug him whole-heartedly if you’ve defined them ‘A problem character’. This is the thing. So, any event, any situation, everything that we end up going to from our preconceived notion about it, then it becomes like this.

Now, the best part about life is that (in a way, to say something) is that it only has to be met in THIS moment. It is only has to be met in THIS moment. And there is actually never a problem in this moment. It can seem strange and you might say ‘Oh, that is because we are sitting in Satsang’ or you know ‘The Presence is Here’ or something. [Smiles] When we actually just look, there is never really problem in THIS moment. A problem relies on past and future. But life does not have to be met in that way, with projections of past and future.

Bhagavan [Sri Ramana Maharshi] uses this very beautiful metaphor that you come to Stasnag and the words of Satsang are just thorns that we use to remove other thorns. Now, we like that example. ‘This is very nice; thorns use to remove other thorns.’ But did he say it is going to be a painless process? What does it sound like? Thorns removing other thorns cannot be [painless]. A thorn goes in; it can feel like it is painful. Because as I have been saying we are not holding on to any belief thinking that it is wrong; we are holding on to a belief thinking that it’s right. And when that is being questioned, then you can have all kind of doubts about it. ‘Now Father has gone too far. It was okay to say ‘Ego is not true, person is not true.’ It was okay to say ‘I am the self; I am Awareness, the ultimate truth.’ But now he is going too far. Because now he is saying, ‘Up and down is also not there; these are also notional.’ So, this kind of thing is bound to come up. You say ‘Come, come, come on! Let me lead my life at least. What do you want from me?’[Smiles] These kinds of things. Those who have been in Satsang with me sometimes also write to me and say ‘But, but, what? Then what?’

Sometimes I am getting very beautiful reports also. Another one she has been with me for long time, she said ‘It just feels like I am waking up again.’ And some, of course, are writing me ‘!’ [Chuckles] So, if it comes to that, where it feels like it is too much to be fully empty, fully naked; it feels like it is too much, then hold on to one concept for dear life. I give you licence for one. [Smiles] You have one concept; hold on to dear life.

And that concept can be ‘Guru Kripa Kevalam.’
It can be ‘Who am I?’
It can be ‘What do I know when I know nothing?’

Once a very beautiful interaction happened like this. One very sweet girl, she was with me for some time in Bangalore, she was living here. (You probably know this story.)

She said, “I’m really, really bothered for the last few days.”
I said, ‘Why are you bothered?”
She said, “Because you say: Don’t believe your next thought.”

In those days, almost every day I would say ‘Don’t believe your next thought.’

So, she said, “But there is one thought I cannot NOT believe. I have to believe it.”
So, I told her very naturally I just told her, “You can have one.”

For a second, she was shocked. Because every day I was saying this. [Chuckles]

I said, “You can have one.”
She is like, “What…?”

I could see that the mind ran out moves even out of that, because it was expecting a battle. That one thought, will be…?

I said, “You have one.”

And then you know what the first thing was?

She says to me, “Ananta, can I have two more?”

[Laughter in the room]

So, this is how it plays. I take this example of the tree of conditioning actually vanishing, dissolving completely in this moment …, and yet, when the offers come to pull at it, to tug at one leaf, one branch and you tug at it, you feel like the entire tree of tendencies, conditioning, vasanas (whatever you may call it) seems to be back here again. That is how it plays out. Just one notion, the idea that you pick about yourself; the ‘me. The ‘me is not just one small concept. It is a bundle of your full belief system. It is your entire belief system.

And if you tug at this ‘me’ idea, in any way; even ‘I am so spiritual’ … ‘The ‘me’ is making progress’ … ‘The ‘me’ is really getting it today’ (anything) then it can feel like the past, the future, everything seems so true.

But in THIS moment, THIS moment, THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS moment, THIS moment: it is not there, it is gone; all this duality, dichotomy, is naturally gone.

Usually it will come and say (the offer is coming again for the duality; it will come and say) ‘But… (something)’. Now, the funny thing is, when ‘But…’ is coming from somebody else’s mouth, all of you can spot it. ‘See?’ [Chuckles] ‘Look at them. They are buying that garbage, look at them. For how long they have been in Satsang?’ [Laughs] But when it seems to come from here [pointing to head] ‘But… ta… ta… ta. This one [this notion] there could be something to it’. [Chuckles]

Why does it happen like this? In a way, there is no answer to why but if you have to say something you can say that these are these nourished notions that have derived meaning for us for so long that we get attached to them.

We have a scientist [here from the sangha today]. If a thought comes and says to him ‘But you are terrible at ice skating’ his response could be ‘whatever…’ But if the thought says ‘I will give you a scientific discovery which will blow Einstein out of the water!’ It will always say, ‘Kamal, Kamal, Einstein would be forgotten!’ [Laughter] [Makes gesture of giving consideration to the thought] ‘This could be worthwhile.’

Now, to say to an Olympic ice-skater, ‘You are a terrible ice-skater,’ this same thing will hurt. The construct is the same but where it pokes is where we have an identity around that. We have a notion about ourselves which is built on this identity. That’s why the same construct seems to impact here but not impact anywhere else. And we are able to spot it over there so easily. ‘See? Father is saying don’t buy any notion. Give yourself the gift of one moment of notionless existence. And this one, they are giving the gift of the notion again.’ [Chuckles] You can spot it there because we are not so identified with the idea, so it is so clear that it is just the mind. But it comes to us appealing, so tempting: ‘Come, come.’

The mind reminds me a lot of that (if some of you grew up watching it) this cartoon show: Tom and Jerry. Tom-cat would sometimes put this cheese to catch Jerry-mouse. And they would show this hand coming out from the cheese and Jerry mouse would come next to the cheese and the cheese would start floating in the air. You saw? That’s how the mind plays. It just knows what type of cheese to put. It would be like ‘Come, come. You think you are so free, so open? Come.’

The best part is, the cheese is just the starter. Because it has tempted you saying ‘Do this, do that; (something).’ But then (because you have been in Satsang) [and heard this] what is the dessert? ‘I’m so unworthy, I’m so bad. I have been listening to Satsang for so long and I get caught up in these ideas again.’

These are all just ideas. That cheese was just the starter and this heavy calorific dessert of ideas we pick up are spiritual unworthiness, our mistakes, our guilt, our not getting it. It’s like a multi-course meal; the starter is very tempting. [Mimics the tempting mind inviting: ‘Come, come’] But what do you end up with? Because you have been in Satsang and you have an identity around your spiritual ego, it will come and say ‘To the outside, you are showing all of this but actually you are still stuck. You are still stuck! 5 years in Satsang, you are still stuck.’ You buy these ideas and those are the real potent ones. They become really sticky.

So, because mind has these tricks up its sleeve, the Masters also have to have some tricks up their sleeves. One simple trick is that the Master says: ‘Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now.’ Because nothing which is false actually gets carried through to Now. It needs that process of temptation, attention, belief and all that to happen before you can actually consider yourself to be ‘something’.
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Excerpt from Ananta Satsang – 13th September 2018
Entitled: The Statement “I Am” Does Not Capture the Reality of ‘I-Am-Ness’

Times: 28:23-40:20
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Thank you, Beloved Anantaji <3

[Reading from chat]: “Father, I am already here before any dream of spiritual evolution plays out.”

This itself, one line, is so good. You are Here. Before you can play this game of getting to enlightenment, can you identify your starting point? This is what I am constantly asking you. You say you want to get to point B, but what is your starting-point-A? Now this A, we don’t really taste, we are in avoidance of. And how are we in avoidance of it? We are in avoidance of it by conceptualizing.

We have been looking over this in the last few days. Even when we say ‘Is this it?’ or ‘This can’t be it’ we are actually in avoidance of this. Like, what is Here Now?

He says, very beautifully ‘I am already here before any dream of spiritual evolution plays out.’

[Continues reading from chat]: “I seem to get sucked in and then spat out of delusions and the spitting out feels shocking. But that’s when I remember I never move. I am always here; unchanged, formless. I am very grateful to see this.”

This is very good. Often, we say in Satsang that everything we say after ‘I Am’ is a story. Isn’t it? Because everything we put after ‘I Am’ is just made up (something from the past, some projection into the future) with no actual basis in reality.

Now the thing with this is that if everything after ‘I Am’ is a story, do you ever need to state ‘I Am’? You never need to state ‘I Am’ because when it is stated; even in stating ‘I Am,’ even in the statement ‘I Am,’ it doesn’t capture the reality of I-Am-ness.

Many times, even this can also become a concept for us like [for example] ‘I can truly only say I exist. I can really say this!’ But if you question even that and I say ‘Okay, ‘I’ …, what is this ‘I’ that exists?’ and then you use some other concepts, ‘I which is the unchanging Awareness; That has come into existence’ … but do we know any of this? ‘That’ came into existence? So, was it not existing before?

So, when really probed into, we realize that all these words fall flat. And then we pick up a new set of words. ‘All words fall flat therefore, I must be only silent.’ So, then there’s that new position that ‘I must be only silent’ but even that is not true. Even in this, you make yourself out to be just this body/mind instrument.

Who must be only silent? Awareness is silent, Being is silent, so when you are saying ‘I must be only silent’ we are again talking about this one. [body-mind] So, all these references come back to this body/mind instrument in one way or the other. And we have been looking at some of these things.

Like when I say ‘Don’t try to find a point’ then you’ve been hearing that ‘Ah, Father is saying everything is meaningless; everything is meaningless, what’s the point of existing?’ I didn’t say that. [Chuckles] Because to even say that ‘something is meaningless’ is to give it meaning. You’re giving it the meaning that it is meaningless …, because we feel so naked without a concept; we feel that either it has to be meaningful or meaningless. Now, what is between these two?

It is the same thing as asking ‘What is in the space between two thoughts?’ When you are out of this seeming-trap of duality (of this way or that way) then you meet Shiva. (I don’t know where that came out from.) [Chuckles] Because I am not trying to give you a goal, I am not trying make it sound glamorous, because then you can have this idea that ‘If I just step back from duality, I will get darshan of Shiva.’ Then that can become another set of concepts.

That is why, more and more these days, I am not promising you anything in return; I am not promising anything in return. I am just saying that apparently what you are believing about yourself seems to have no basis. What you seem to believe about yourself does not have a basis. And it’s obvious that you won’t like that, so I am just surprised that there are so many in the room. [Chuckles] Because nobody likes to come day after day to a place where you are just being reminded basically that you are full of nonsense. [Laughter]

So, somehow it plays out in this way, that somewhere we already start to get an inkling of this, that ‘All these concepts that I’ve held on to and their opposites that I’ve held onto do not have any substantial basis.’

Q: This ‘up and down’ … are you saying that a starting point is a presumption?

A: Your starting point, in reality, is never a presumption. But the starting point, the moment you think about it, is always a presumption.

Q: You’re saying that all our notions are presumptions?

A: Exactly. All our notions are presumptions. And we’re basing all our presumptions on the basic notion that ‘I am something’.

Q: If you put a label on it…

A: Yes. If you have a label for it, you have notional-ized it. If you have a label for it, it means you have notional-ized it.

Like I was taking this example the other day. We have this label: ‘man’. What does ‘man’ mean? It’s a very, very broad generalization. There is actually no such thing as a ‘man’. Because then we want to separate, we want to divide, we want to put it in our mental compartment. ‘Who comes to Satsang with Ananta?’ … ‘Oh, there were 7 men and 7 women.’  You see? Like this; we have these kinds of ways to divide. We make these ‘photocopies’ based on notions. But is that a true representation? There is no such thing. Like, the other day I was saying ‘between human and animal…’ We can so easily use these notions to dehumanize things, in a way.

So, these notions are just dividing. Because every time we give our assent to the existence of ‘some-thing’ we are giving the idea that ‘I am something’ importance or credence. And what did Bhagavan [Sri Ramana Maharshi] say? That it is the idea that ‘I am something’ that is at the root of all suffering. ‘I Am’ itself just Is. But the idea that ‘I am something’ …

So, I could go so far as to say that even the idea that ‘something’ is ‘something’ …, that anything is ‘something’ is the same idea, that ‘I am something.’ Like, in your pure perception right now, is there any division? Naturally? In just your perception, is there any division? Is there a ‘me’ sitting there watching? No …, unless we think about it. ‘Is there a ‘me’?’ Then it’s like this side is ‘me’, that side is ‘not-me.’ But in just your pure perception, what is the duality? [Silence] Are colors, colors? It doesn’t mean that your perception will become color-less. But the meaning of the term ‘color’ is not needed. It is what we need to make our basket of belief; all these ideas.

So, that’s why the Sages have said ‘Remain in your pure perception. Don’t judge anything. Don’t interpret anything.’

Q: So, as you keep saying, something is recognizing that immediately a conclusion is being made. Like, it’s without a conscious thing but suddenly some conclusion gets made like ‘Yeah, now I can’t even trust.’ You know? [Father laughs] ‘I can’t believe, I can’t have trust in him, because what should I trust?’ But it doesn’t seem to be as of it’s consciously being done. I mean, it doesn’t feel like I am doing this in a very conscious way.
A: Yes.

Q: But maybe, just sitting here, it seems to be getting seen because you are pointing us to that ‘Look. It’s happening like that.’ So, then you can recognize that maybe this is what’s happening. If you hadn’t said it, it would just feel normal to be …, the tennis match is going on, conclusions being made; you wouldn’t recognize that conclusion is being made.

A: Yes, exactly. Because our effortful position is now starting to feel like our natural position. Our effortful position of giving our assent or decent to thoughts, to living with these concepts, seems to have become the natural position. So, then it feels like it’s so natural. So, ‘just be’ with this mind and its judgments all the time. But when you get poked in Satsang every day, you can feel like ‘I see what I’m doing.’ Even in that, which you are saying …, even in that claim ‘This is what I’m doing’ we are conceptualizing, we are giving that assent. [Chuckles]

So, okay, let me share a little more. See, what can happen is that words which are meant to dissolve our concepts, itself we can use to conceptualize or make them fresh concepts. That’s why I feel like every day I must start Satsang with a statement that ‘What I am saying or going to say is neither true nor false’ …, because you won’t know what to do with that. If you give your assent to it then you’re saying it’s true but I’m saying it’s not true. If you say it’s not true …, ‘But it’s not false also.’ So, you won’t know where to put this statement, and the rest of it is also meant like that. But for a while, we will keep using it in this way. That’s why those contradictions are very important.

If one day I say ‘Left, left, left’ and next day I don’t say ‘Right, right, right’ then you might feel like ‘The Truth is left.’

So, you can’t conclude and the ineloquence of not being able to conclude is the best …, (unless you make that a conclusion). So, this is that strange kind of Satsang where you say ‘I got it.’ [He signifies ‘No.’] ‘I’m just not getting it.’ [He signifies ‘No.’] Sometimes I am tempted to use a term ‘Because I’m pushing you into a non-dual space’ or something like that but you see you can conclude something like that.

Q: ‘Not this, not that’ in itself is also a conclusion.

A: Exactly. Exactly. That’s why I might someday say ‘It is this. It is that.’ [Laughs]

Q: Best is to come to helplessness.

A: Yes, but when you say ‘Best is to come to helplessness’ then you are not as helpless as I want you to be because [Chuckles] you are hanging on to that branch that ‘I’m doing well because I’m helpless.’ [Sangha laughs] Because what can happen then is like ‘I’m doing so well. Every day, I’m more and more helpless, man.’ You know?

Q: That also becomes a notion.

A: That is a notion. Empty of the notion of emptiness also. Otherwise, we can be like ‘Today, I’m 99% empty’ …, but you are full of it! You are full of that notion that you are 99% empty.

Q: But then 1% will become hundred percent.

A: It is already. When you buy it, it is already. You’re full.

And I know that for most of you the mind is inviting you to say ‘Just then keep quiet. Just then keep quiet. But then ‘Just keep quiet’ is also a position. You see?

‘Then what?! Then what?!’

This one has to get desperate, tired; to give up, in a way. [Laughs]

This word ‘open’ sounds like such a simple word. Open. ‘I’m very open. I’m so open.’ But everything, all our ideas about how things should be (‘This is good, this is bad; this is wrong, this is right; this is up, this is down; this is past, this is future; this is inside, this is outside’) all of that is notional.

So, if, as you claim, you have seen that you’re not this body, tell me what is left and what is right; what is up and what is down? In that claim, we don’t like ‘I’m the body’ because even that you cannot make. Because I will ask you ‘If you are convinced you are the body, what will you get in Satsang for the body?’ Nothing, no? Whatever you were told about coming to Satsang, it was definitely not that your biceps will improve, your teeth will be whiter. None of these guarantees would be there for the body. ‘Your bones will have more calcium.’ So, you’re definitely not here for that. So, you’re already not convinced that you are the body, that’s why you come.

Now, of course, because you sometimes feel out of moves so you feel like ‘No, no, Ananta. I am just the body.’ Then what you sitting here talking to me for? So, something already…, the inkling is there that I am not this body. That’s why you’re here. No ice cream was promised here. Nothing. [Chuckles] So, that is also not true.

But all our references about ourselves are from where? Body. Left/right. Up/down. Inside/ outside. And this is the crazy reference: inside/outside. Have we looked at it? Outside is what? Outside the body. Inside is what? Ah? But it isn’t, you see? It feels like ‘Oh, I go inside, I go inside the body’ but you don’t. If you went inside the body (like I was saying) you will find blood, flesh, bones, teeth; all these things. So, you don’t go inside the body.

Where do you go? This, we don’t explore. Now, it can feel like this space is ‘inside me’. But I can tell you that it’s more true … (if anything is more true and less true, it is more true to say): this that we call outside, is actually inside that inside.

Q: Why do we say ‘inside’? Why do the Sages say ‘inside’?
A: Yeah, this is what I’m questioning. Why are you calling it ‘inside’? Inside what?

Q: …and also some Sages say that.

A: Yeah! I know! We’ll ask them… [Laughs] (I’m just joking) … how they would refer to it.  (Because we have to be a little respectful to the Sages, so … [Laughs] … and I’m a little respectful to the previous expressions coming out of this mouth.) Because you would say, at least in that way, we are looking beyond just this outside (what we are ‘clear about the outside’) …, at least we start looking beyond that. But we don’t really know what this ‘inside’ is and that’s why we make many conclusions about it.

Even this inside, for some, they can say ‘Ah, there is so much joy, so much bliss when I go inside.’ Some will say ‘I get really scared when I go inside.’ All these kinds of ideas and conclusions we can make about it, because fundamentally we are not even clear about this.

It’s not fun. I know. It’s just like ‘What is this?!’ It’s like parents, many times, they complain like:

‘We’re very irritated with our five-year-old.’

Why are you irritated with your five-year-old?

‘Because he is constantly asking: Why! Why is this like this? Why is this like this? Why? …’

So, what is the irritation? It is not that you don’t want to answer your kids. It is only because within two minutes you will start to feel like you’re the stupidest person in the entire universe! [Sangha laughs] The child will say ‘Why is the sky blue?’ [No answer] Some will say, of course, ‘The light reflects against these particles in the air’ or whatever…, but very few. But mostly when a child is asking questions you start to feel that ‘I’ve inhabited this Earth, seemingly, for so many years, and I don’t even know this very fundamental question of existence. It should be very obvious to me by now but I don’t know.’ So, then we resist that by saying ‘I’m paying very high school fees so that you can go to school and ask your teacher these kinds of questions instead of bothering me.’ [Chuckles] Because to come face to face with our lack of any sort of true knowing through this device [mind] can seem very tough for us, because we were told that if you have a lot of good stuff in here [Points to his head] you’ll lead a good life. You will know how to run your life properly, you will know what to do, you will know ‘how to’.

And that is why, when this mind is being deconstructed now, what is the biggest resistance? It is ‘How can I live my life? Am I really expected to live my life like this?’ Because we were taught that to live our life, we need to know what is good and what is bad, what is true and what is false, what is inside and what is outside. But we were fed words. We were fed words and we took those words to be the truth. So, then we were fed words in school, then we were fed words in relationships, then we were fed words in work environments.

Then you feel like you will come to Satsang. You feel like you will come to a point where you will be fed some final words: ‘Tatva Masi!’ And when you grab those words; you will have the ultimate words and ‘You are done!’

When I’m saying it like this, it sounds very silly, but actually this is what we’re doing. We come to Satsang also as a collector of concepts, that ‘I will learn something and that will be my truth.’ Now, this kind of Satsang is very strange, in a way. In a way, you might also find it very difficult. Some of you might find it very difficult. The mind must be resisting it with full fury for many of you anyway because your beliefs, your ideas, are being thrown away, are being poked out.

Q:  Everything is just as it is, but when I hear something like that example [Ananta gave] of Tom and Jerry [cartoon] then I want to…, I derive enjoyment from it.

A: You derive enjoyment from that. Okay, let me ask you a question. To taste the sweetness of a grape, what concept do you need?

Q: No concept.

A: In fact, when your attention is dispersed between conceptualizing and tasting the grape, you’re not tasting it fully because in this play it seems like we have a limited attention. That is why the Buddhists have given this kind of mindfulness: Just eat the grape fully.

I felt like this is weirdest thing when I was going though this process many years ago. And they were like ‘Look at the grape, then bring it close, smell it and take a bite, slowly, taste.’ And it was amazing. Because I felt like I have never tasted the grape before. [Smiles] But when you have this kind of thing like ‘Ah, enjoy the grape’ or you know usually how in our life; it is more like ‘email is being written, grape is being eaten.’ So, what is the email, what is the grape? Everything is all mixed up anyway.

So, there is nothing against deriving enjoyment from whatever is appearing. There is enough joy in this very moment that the idea of desire will start to seem alien to you. If you were to taste this moment for what it is fully, the idea that one put one morsel on top of that will sound funny.

That is why we go to a Sage. ‘What can I get from you to make my life better?’ It is like ‘Life better? Life already is amazing!’ So, what do you want? What do you mean ‘life better’?

Q: Because I do not want to go back home …, so then I have to plan it out. Otherwise, I can stay like this for a whole day.

A: See, both are just ideas. I know it’s not fun to hear this but I have to say it, in a way. Like, your idea is that “Unless I plan it out, I will not get back home.’

Q: Yes, sometimes I feel like lots of things are happening spontaneously.

A: Okay, how you are planning to move that hand?

Q: It is moving.

A: The hand is moving, no? So, if the hand is moving, the foot can also move. You will come back home.

Q: There is feeling that should I just drop it.

A: Of course. But without even the idea that ‘I have dropped everything.’ Because what happened once; we did this experiment. One boy was coming to Satsang, probably your age. So, he said to me ‘Ananta, should I just then leave it.’ And then next day he came to me and complained because he said ‘I left it. I left it. Then I was standing at a signal for one hour.’ But he had not left it, because he was still hanging on to the idea that ‘I left it.’

Can you hear what I am saying? This is important. Because the mind knows only opposites. Either keep, keep or leave, leave. I am saying neither.

You know what happened with that boy? When he heard ‘leave it’ he hung on to the idea of ‘leaving it.’ So, he just got attached to that position of having left it. Now, what I am saying is you drop both opposites and see how it unfolds. Neither keep it nor leave it.

The mind cannot understand these things. The mind is saying ‘Give me binary; either zero or one, yes or no.’ But somewhere it may be getting through. Your life is not just struck in these opposites. It is not just about ‘keep’ and ‘leave.’ So, what are you beyond these ideas of ‘Should I keep or should I leave it’?

Q: …. just, if I leave it, I will become lazy.

A: But I never said ‘leave it.’ [Chuckles]

Q: But one more doubt is coming that then is this just an excuse for my laziness.

A: He was saying ‘leave it.’ But I didn’t say ‘leave it.’ Again, I will say, listen: I am not saying ‘keep it or leave it.’ If you get attached to either idea, it is still a limitation. Because Consciousness is All-There-Is, so it cannot be like keeping or leaving. It cannot be stuck in these two opposites. Now, beyond keeping and leaving, what is there about you? Beyond these opposites?

Q: There is just peace…

A: [Smiles] There is just peace. What is so wrong with that? [Chuckles] There is a beautiful Satsang someone had with Guruji [Sri Mooji] many years ago. And the man said ‘You have given me everything. But I have no money.’ [Smiles] Guruji [Sri Mooji] Guru ji says ‘What is Here Now?’ [And the guy says]: ‘There is so much peace, there is love, joy. Just no money.’

[Laughter in the room]

So, what do you want which is beyond peace? Even what will money buy you? Peace only, no? …, at best. Usually, it does not, but at best. [Chuckles]

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi used the term at one point (which I have not often used in Satsang because then that becomes very glamorous) he used the term ‘Manonasa’ meaning ‘The destruction or the dissolution of the mind.’ So, this. When we are free from the duality of concepts, as they lose their meaning, then our interest, our attention and all of these things also don’t go to this one which is just selling us some story about ourselves. And you find this indescribable; you find yourself becoming very ineloquent.

So, initially when we start off in Satsang (and maybe because we have learned so much in spirituality) we start off very eloquent like ‘I know this, I know that, I have seen this, last year I had the experience of nirvikalpa samadhi’ or something. You see? All this. We are carrying this baggage of past insights and past ideas and they have become your burden now; even spiritual experiences. Because we are carrying them in our individual story ‘This happened to me, that happened to me, this is where I am now. This is my truth.’ [Chuckles] We are very attached to the concept ‘my truth’ but ‘our truth’ is a lie. [Chuckles] What to say? I don’t go around saying that to people but only those who invite themselves to Satsang, then they get to hear these things. We get very attached to ‘my truth is this.’ But your truth was something else yesterday. And your truth would be something else the day after tomorrow. [Chuckles] So, don’t be so attached to this ‘my truth.’ The ‘me’ itself is a lie. So, how can ‘your truth’ be Truth?

These fancy concepts, especially the spiritual ones, we feel like we are getting some actualization through buying a higher set of concepts. And then we start quoting the Sages. ‘This one had said this, this one had said that, and this is my truth now.’ These kinds of things. So, we become very full of it, very full of it. But life is very beautiful, in a very beautiful way where this, whatever we are full of (you will see if you have been looking clearly) it just becomes the basis of our resistance.

This resisting of ‘What Is’ is through these concepts. Whether worldly concepts or spiritual concepts; concepts nevertheless. And God is not such a tiny thing that you can fit it in a concept. Fundamentally that’s what I am saying.

If you feel like that you can get the meaning of this Reality in a set of words, then what kind of Reality would that be? Nothing. And then that would imply that the opposite is ‘not Reality’. Now, All-There-Is cannot be a part of this; restricted to a certain duality. So, if we are able to say ‘Ah, this, this, this, this, this is it’ then what kind of tame Reality would that be, if it is so expressible?

Now, the thing is that, even with the statement that ‘the Truth cannot be expressed’ we are trying to do the same thing, [Chuckles] trying to express the Truth in a negative way. So, although it is a beautiful pointer (‘neti-neti’ meaning not that, not that; it is a beautiful pointer) but if we take that itself as a badge of honor or something ‘I just know now that the Truth cannot be expressed’ then again, we are building idols to concepts. I have been calling it ‘idols to harpic.’ [Harpic is the name of a cleaning product in India] [Laughter] Because that which was meant to do the clean up job, we start to idolize that itself. And this can happen in various ways. We try to idolize it in various ways because we feel so helpless for a while there; we feel too open, too naked for a moment there that we feel like ‘I don’t have a branch to hang on to.’

Q: There is some resistance there.

A: Of course, there is resistance. [Chuckles] Of course, there will be resistance to these words because the peddler of positions will not like it. What is it resisting with? Like ‘What is this? Shut up. Shut up.’

I am used to this, okay? [Laughter] Because sometimes we are not doing that molly-coddling spirituality, like ‘Come, come, my child, I will take you to God. The Greater Reality is waiting for you.’ (We can do that sometimes, it’s okay.) [Chuckles] But the point is that we get so caught up in our spiritual ego also.

So, that’s why I have been saying ‘Truth for Truth’s sake’ which actually only means: drop the lies. We claim a lot of things that have no basis. In fact, all our claims are like that. [Chuckles] They have no basis in any sort of reality. So, that which seems to have a hold over us, this sense of individuality, the ego (if you must call it something) obviously is in opposition to this. It does not like your conceptual emptiness.