BOOKS BY ANANTA Welcome to Satsang with Ananta

[Reading from the chat]: “Can questions be asked without the mind? Can a question be asked without going to the past or future? How does one ask the question, Father?”

Just like this. [Smiles] Like these three questions.

Let me try to make it clearer at a different level. So, what is the question fundamentally? The main reasoning, in a way, of this instrument of reasoning, like intellect, is to fill in what it feels like is a conceptual gap. Isn’t it? So, you are right in that way, that all questions are fundamentally conceptual; concepts requesting other concepts to lead to some sort of conceptual completion.

Now, that is why Satsang is a rare place, because you come here to get some sort of conceptual completion and instead, with every question, you’re invited to a conceptual emptiness. Usually when we ask a question, you think that you will be given that card which will complete the house of cards; just that missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle which will make it perfect. You see, it starts like that.

But then, what the Master wants to do is just shake it all up and throw it away. [Smiles] And for a while, we don’t like that because we feel like ‘I came with a question, I want him to answer.’ I feel like every one of you who has come here, at some point initially felt ‘Why does he never answer our question?’ [Smiles] Some of you even feel that later (like you feel very good when you are having the interaction but later) when you look at it, you are like ‘What did he answer? It has nothing to do with the question.’ [Smiles] In a way, it can seem like that. Because I do not want to give you any more pieces, any more cards, to keep building a conceptual house. So, I will use whatever opportunity I get to shake things up and throw them out. As much as you let me throw, I throw. [Chuckles] As much as you are open to letting me throw, I am happy to throw out …, sometimes to the point of even trying to snatch it from you. [Smiles]

So, although all our concepts are conceptual, our answers are conceptual and therefore, mental or intellectual (it is similar, in a way) the seeming purpose of the answers in Satsang is not for you to be able to add them to your conceptual basket.

It is just to show you that everything that you think you know, everything that you feel you are right about also, is only causing you a trouble, is only giving you a misery.’ So, hand that over if you can.

Some of you know that I have been sharing this simple story about the elephant and six blind men. I just shared a link today which had a very beautiful poem about it. This is a poem called ‘The Blind Men and the Elephant’ by John Godfrey Saxe. It was written somewhere around the 1800’s. It says:

It was six men of Indostan

To learning much inclined,

Who went to see the elephant

(Though all of them were blind),

That each by observation

Might satisfy his mind.

And so these men of Indostan

Disputed loud and long,

Each in his own opinion

Exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right,

And all were in the wrong! [Chuckles]

Then they have written in the end (like a moral):

So, oft in theological wars

The disputants, I ween,

Rail on in utter ignorance

Of what each other mean

And prate about an Elephant

Not one of them has seen!

I have to say that I am very attracted to this parable, this story, because this is how worldly perspectives are. And all the disputes are about this, just differences in perspective. One line he says ‘All of them are little bit right but all of them are wrong’. [Chuckles]

So, just notice if we have any such things that we feel we are so right about, that things have to be this way or don’t have to be this way, or this is right and this is wrong. Really, truly in our heart; go in our heart and just check:

What is it?

Isn’t it just a belief?

Isn’t it just an opinion, just an idea?

And weren’t You before this idea?

Don’t be attached to any baggage that you hold. Don’t be attached to any idea. Because the Truth is not so flimsy. The Truth is not so flimsy that if an idea goes away, It will go away; if an idea comes, It will come. Then what would the difference be between Truth an opinion? Opinions are like that, beliefs are like that. They come, they go. Is that what all of this is about?

In a way, all this is about ridding ourselves of this; ridding ourselves of these opinions, beliefs, of our righteousness. And it is only these differences in perspective. And nobody has truly seen the elephant. In fact, the ‘elephant’ cannot be seen by these eyes. And yet we’re all fighting …, ‘No, it is a pillar, it is a fan, it is a pipe.’

[Reading from the chat]: “Father, I do this for analyzing. Could it be that the thoughts must have like a photo album? Or are they just randomized in the mind? Does it necessarily mean that these experiences happen in Consciousness? What is Papaji [Sri Poonja] saying when he says: Nothing ever happened.”

That is exactly what I was saying, that we cannot rely on our memory. If you do a survey of all the people who are in Satsang today and you ask them ‘What happened?’ everyone will have a different testimony. Memory is as unreliable as everything else. So, we cannot really say ‘Something happened or didn’t happen.’ In fact, we cannot truly say that there is a past; or a future for that matter.’

What did Papaji mean when he says that ‘Nothing ever happened’? That you have to see for yourself. As you are coming to your notional emptiness as your notion-less Existence, as you start dropping every notion, every notion, every idea which you think represented the Truth, it will become so empty that the idea of… (let me not speak too much because then this becomes conceptual.) [Smiles]

Fundamentally, it comes down to the same thing:

What can’t you give up being right about?

[Smiles] That is all that will cause you suffering.

What are you so certain that you know, that you are able to define?

Which concepts have now become too holy for you to give up?  Throw them away. I know some fear will come. I know a fear will come because you feel like your life is driven by these concepts; it is run because you have these concepts. It is not true. Nothing of value will ever go away. What is the fear? I ask you to ‘You throw away even your holiest concept’ you feel like ‘Oh, then what if I stop coming to satsang? What if I lose my Master?’ You see, things like this. But I did not say anything about that. It is only because you feel that your life is driven because you hold to certain concepts; you feel like your ‘doership’ relies on these concepts; which is not true.

Come to your emptiness; come to your notion-less Existence. And don’t be scared. Throw away even your brand-new crutches, your most spiritual crutches.

[Reading from the chat]: “Thank you, Father, Keep chopping.”

Thank you for that invitation. [Smiles]

[Reading from the chat]: “Thank you, Anantaji. I seek your blessing that I be earnest.”

A simpler way is that: Forget about earnest. Just seek the Master’s blessings. Like don’t know what you want. Give this ‘not-knowing’ a chance.

I know that this is dependent on this notion of ‘earnest.’ We spoke about it when you were here also and we deconstructed it in some way, but don’t make anything a ‘thing.’ Don’t make anything a ‘thing’ …, [Silence]

Suppose I was going to give you the greatest, greatest, greatest gift ever! …, but you are only looking for earnestness. And you might even feel like ‘He is not answering my prayer.’ [Smiles]

‘Don’t know’ what you want also and see what happens.

Q: So, you are saying, Father, that when the label is dropped there is nothing happening.

A: I am saying that happening is also a label. [Smiles]. In the sense that the appearance and its opposite (which is presumably reality) are also ultimately notional. The distinction is notional.

Q: Okay. So, when I drop the label (I will speak from Now) attention can still go to things. Attention goes to, lets’ say, some sensation, whatever. Is that also your experience?

A: Attention goes to things…

Q: So, let’s say I have dropped…, say my hand is touching this. [Touching the couch] I’m touching your hand and there is a sensation …, and I don’t know what it is.

A: Don’t label. You don’t know attention is attention, sensation is sensation; anything is anything.

Q: Okay. Right.

A: You are not taking the position either of the subject or the object. So, this subject-object thing dissolves.

Q: Yeah. So, then how am I not what I’m seeing?

A: Yes, you are what you are seeing. But the thing is that we live in a way that we are ONLY that which we are seeing. So, when the sages say ‘neti, neti’ (you are not that) they are showing you something which is the greater part of you, in a sense. Why greater? Because it remains untouched. It is unchanging. So, it is only through the process of the inquiry that we will say ‘Okay, not that.’

A few like months ago (may be couple of years ago) I have started changing the terminology saying ‘You are not that’ to ‘You are not just that.’ Otherwise, there can be sense of aversion or a distance being created from the object itself.

So, question really is: what is beyond that, that you are? You have always considered yourself to be only that. Now when they say ‘Not that, not that’ what they are really trying to say is ‘What is the greater part of you, the unchanging part of you, which is untouched by any state?’ So, when you don’t make distinctions …, you rightly said ‘I cannot find that this is me as just this’ or ‘How am I not this or not that?’ Yes.

Q: So, without thought labeling anything, I don’t know what is, in a sense.

A: You do know what is; but what you think should know this doesn’t know what is.

Q: Can you explain, Father?

A: In the sense that, you in reality know what is. But you don’t know it …, like you’re not able to label it, you are not able to have a notion about it, you don’t have a concept of it.

We have been taught that unless you have a concept of it you don’t know it.

When we were checking, when we said ‘Look at solidity’ …, you are aware of it. But even if you didn’t have a term for it (‘solidity’ or whatever) you will still be aware of it.

So, this Knowingness doesn’t come and go. And yet, you know this Knowingness. It is so apparent. That’s why you say ‘I know’. ‘I know that it is solid’ …, but independent of concept or precept.

How are we able to say that it is I which knows?

Q: Because that’s my experience.

A: You Know it that way. (But that is with a capital ‘K’.) But for your mind, you don’t know it.

Q: So, guide me here now, Father. Some sensation or whatever, I am fully aware of it. Now, this I is …, I can’t find it, so it gets a little frustrating.

A: And yet you say ‘I can’t find it.’

Q: That’s almost post facto. Like I am so aware of the sensations; that’s just natural. But when I think about it, I can’t find it.

A: It is very natural. Exactly right. It is clear that ‘I am aware.’ It is clear that ‘I am aware.’ So, you found it. Because you are not making it up.

Q: No.

A: You are not fantasizing, you are not making it up, you are not presuming, you are not inferring; none of these things are happening. You’re simply with innocence saying ‘I am aware.’

This is all the Knowing that is needed. Because you know ‘I’ in that, you know ‘aware’ in that. You see? And yet if somebody comes and says ‘What is this I?’ then when you try to put it in a mental box: ‘I don’t know. I haven’t found it yet.’ But you have never lost it. Because you can so naturally say ‘I am aware.’

Q: You also experience (I am just assuming that you also see) sensations and stuff. And you also …, maybe in your case it doesn’t happen where the mind says whatever. What’s your Seeing like? What I am trying to do is to See from your perspective.

A: Our Seeing is 100% the same. Our Seeing is 100% the same; it is only that the interpretations from the mind are not being believed.

Q: That’s it, huh?

A: That is it. Our Seeing is 100% the same; that is why we are One. Anyways, don’t worry about that inference. Nothing has to change in anything actually, except that this mind-interpretation is not bought.

So, when the Sages say that their perspective is more universal, it is more global, what they mean is that it is unfiltered by this maha-mantra of ‘What’s in it for me?’ (the ego’s maha-mantra is ‘What about me, what about me?’) When your attention is not so much interested in that…, there could be some broadening of phenomenal perception, more aliveness in phenomenal perception but fundamentally, just like the regulator knob gets turned up but nothing fundamental has changed. What is seen is exactly the same.

Okay, let me say what I am Seeing, then you say whether it is true for you or not. Now, we are going to use terms because we have to use language, but you can just discard them after this.

There is an Awareness of Existence, a sense of Presence. This Presence in itself (although it seems to be centered in a particular way) when it is explored, you find that it doesn’t have a beginning or an end.

So, you can either confirm it or say it is not your experience. All of us can check in this way.

There is an Awareness of this Beingness, of Presence, of Existence. And although it might seem to be limited, when truly checked, we find that it has no bounds.

If it feels to you that it has a boundary, then go to the boundary and see what is beyond that. And as soon as you go to see what is beyond that, You will find that You are there. You will find that You are there. And then you will see that it is …

Q: Can you explain this?

A: Yes, yes. So, suppose that a sensation that we call the body seems to be defining the boundary of the Presence. So, go there (to the sensation) and see that on every side of the sensation it is only the same Presence. It might seem like Your Presence ends on one side of it but you will find that the other side is also the same as that. So, the boundary was just an idea; that the sensation makes a boundary was just an idea because on either side of the sensation there is only You.

Q: Right. Can I share what I see?

A: Yes, yes, of course.

Q: That there are sensations I label ‘body’ inside (for a lack of a better word). Actually, there are just sensations. I don’t know if it is body or not. There are just sensations and don’t know where they exist.

A: Exactly. Because even those who are amputees can have sensations about their leg which doesn’t even exist in the phenomenal way anymore.

Q: So, now, the mind then tries to make an assumption that they exist in the space called ‘me’.

A: Let’s go really slowly. Mind is what now? Mind is a set of sensations like an energy construct which has a message. That is the only distinction, isn’t it? Like the sensation by itself doesn’t seem to be saying anything. But there is one particular type of sensation (a construct) which seems to be carrying a message which wants to explain some meaning; as a message. Like what is it saying? It is coming; even thoughts are coming, saying ‘This is the body, this is the boundary.’ These are nothing but sensations also. They are perceived.

Q: Right. But the sensation is not aware. I am aware of the sensation.

A: Yeah, we can say that.

Q: Or is the sensation self-aware? (Sorry, I am just talking to myself)

A: It’s okay, it’s fine because at one level we can say everything is Awareness so everything is aware. But as long as we make a distinction between constructs…, like if we say ‘thought’ then in simplicity we can say that ‘I am aware of it, it is not aware of I.’

Q: So, is this sensation aware of itself?

A: Not if it is given any sort of independence. As soon as the distinction is made, then it is not self-aware. I am aware of it; it is not aware of I.

Q: Right. So, you are right, I don’t know what my boundary is.

A: Yes, but as far as you can check, you can’t find one.

Let me say ‘I can’t find one.’ You have to check and confirm the same thing. Because we are saying: ‘How am I Seeing [Pointing to himself]) verses how you are Seeing.’ [Pointing to the Sangha] And I want to show you that it is the same. [Chuckles]

So, there is an undefinable, un-quantifiable-ness of even my sense of Existence. Now, this sense of Existence, it seems to be limited, it seems to be personal for most of us but as we truly explore, we see that that which defines the boundary of this, itself is contained in the very same Existence. So, on the left of the sensation, on the right of the sensation, above it, below it, on every side is the same spacious Being.

Q: What the mind seems to do is that it ends the boundary at a sensation.

A: Exactly, it uses sensation as evidence to confirm to you that you have a boundary. That is why it is called this ‘body/mind instrument.’ The body sensations are used by this mental construct to convince the unlimited that it is limited. If it did not have that evidence of sensation (if the only sensation that you were aware of was of this mind and it was saying that ‘You are limited, you have a boundary’) you would find it very unbelievable. You see? So, it uses that evidence of some sensation. And we have been taught this as children that ‘This is your nose, this is your hand, it got hurt, your foot is here.’ That’s why I said that if we don’t make a reference about ourself using any sensation, It [the Truth] is apparent.

Okay, so let me walk a little more. [Closing eyes and referring to His own Seeing]

In this Existence, then all kinds of light and sound shows; they start appearing. All kind of forces, all kinds of light, sound, weight, all these sensational things, perceptual things, all my perceptions start to appear. They seem to be that which I call inner perception, which is like memories, imagination, this power to project light and sound. It seems to also divide itself in two ways, like outer objects and inner objects; all of these start to appear. But none of them contain my Being. At best, I can say it is within my Being that it is contained. And none of this is confusing as dual. There is no desire, there is no sense of separate doership …, unless I use this power which also comes as part of my Existence: this power to believe something that this one set of these sensations is saying; which then says that ‘I am only one part of this appearance, limited in this way’ and then it has sold these concepts of ‘mine and yours, me and you, me and my world.’

The basis of all of these concepts is the idea of ‘me.’ But it is not even experienced; it is only inferred.

Q: So, this question ‘What do I know when I know nothing?’ …, then when I answer it, Father, it starts with I. And with I-Itself then I question ‘What is this?’

A: Good, good. Right. You can even say ‘Do I know this ‘I’?

Q: Yeah, yeah. And then, somehow it happens like this, that I don’t pin it down. Then I feel like then there is no difference between my sensation and…

A: Good, good. But even in this now, don’t make any conclusion about what happens. Because then that the ‘figure-r’ will hold onto it and then that will become a thing.

Q: Exactly. Right, Father.

A: The pointing itself is completely complete. So, we don’t have to deconstruct it or have any ‘thing’ about it or any even strategy about it. You see? Because then that will become an approach. So, this is what you must do: Let it be fresh whatever it does. Let it be fresh. Like I have said the supporting ground is in the first statement, which says: To know even one thing is to know too much.

That much is enough. It does that clean-up. And also, it is a reminder anytime we need to remind ourselves. And then there is a looking: What do I know when I know nothing?

So, you must not pick up things you know about how to do this or not do this or ‘What is the right way, what is the wrong way?’ Because even to know that one thing is to know too much. Because that can be like when you’re exploring a beautiful terrain, there can be a time where you came to a beautiful exploration and then you say ‘Ah, this is very beautiful. I’ve seen that this is how it is. Now, if I go left, what happens?’ You see, like that. And that is okay for a breather once in a while. If you need a break, it is okay like that. But if it becomes just about that, the desperation, in a way, starts.

So, unlimited, unlimited insights are there in this. [Smiles] Unlimited insights are there in this. It cannot be put in to any slot that ‘This is what it actually does.’ So, this is beautiful already so far. Just leave it fresh as possible. Just like: Fresh.

I am deeply appreciative of all of you. I’m deeply appreciative of all of you, because you allow me to question your ‘knowing.’ You allow me to poke it. [Smiles] It can be more fiery than anything else in the world. To question our belief system, to allow someone to come in and say ‘I am open. Take away everything that I feel I am right about. Take away everything that I think I know. Take away even my spiritual concepts and experiences. Take away my attachment to them.’ If you are meeting me open like this, I’m deeply, deeply appreciative of that…., because this can be a great ‘fire ceremony.’ [Smiles] This can lead to a lot of burning and things like that.

Q: For lack of a better way to explain it, the mind tries to create a separation with this also. I don’t know how to explain it. ‘Oh you are perceiving it so it’s not You.’ Not even perceiving; it’s not like I’m perceiving it.

A: This is actually good, in a way. So, if you feel that you are aware of it or perceiving it (or whatever term) then let’s find who that one is? Leave even that alone; that which is perceived or witnessed in any way. Find that one that perceives that.

Q: Okay. I can’t find it in that sense, but perceiving is happening.

A: Yes. So, this unfound One which can be aware of that (that which we have been calling ‘that’) that which can be aware even of that …, is it somebody else?

Q: No.

A: It is You. And You are aware of that. And this You who is aware of that, you say ‘I can’t find it.’ Why? Because it has no quality you can find. So, it is this You that is ‘That.’ [Chuckles]

Q: There is a very solid feel to it, like it is more solid than my hands, in a sense.

A: What is aware of that? The solidity, what is aware of that?

Q: I am getting little confused. Sorry about that.

A: It’s okay. It’s okay to get completely confused because if the mind is participating as an ally, it will get confused on the way; which is fine. So, whatever quality that we might find, we may say ‘It is very joyous’ or ‘It’s very solid’ then the question comes back ‘So, that which is aware of this solidity or joy, how can that be measured?’

Now, here confusion will come, frustration will come, because we are coming to this point where the mind cannot help us; it cannot fathom anything here. So, let me guide you very slowly. It is undeniable that it is You because even solidity is not a second-hand report that you are making. You are saying that ‘I am aware of the solidity.’ So, it is clear that it is You. And yet this one, although you can say that ‘It is I’ you can never find it perceptually. You cannot find a quality about it, you can’t find its color, its size, where it is sitting. [Chuckles] You can’t find these things about it. And yet it is completely clear on the other hand that ‘It is I.’ Isn’t it?

Q: Yes.

A: It is You only.

Q: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A: It is not Soumya sitting next to you saying ‘It is solid’ or ‘It is liquid.’ She is not saying that. It’s You. And yet this You …, how much space it is taking up?

Q: I don’t know. I can’t say.

A: Can’t see it, can’t find it. So, this is a unique discovery which is amazing! But to mind, it’s irritating.

Q: [Laughs]

A: It is amazing! Why? You will see that it is amazing if you stay with me because you are confirming that it is You and yet, this confirmation is not arising out of your perception.

Q: Yes.

A: There is nothing else in the world like that, which the confirmation not arising either from the concept of it or a perception of it. Either we have an idea like ‘Shiva is sitting on top of Kailash’ [Chuckles] (you have an idea; you have not perceived it but because of concept of it you might confirm it). Or you have perceived it that ‘There are fifteen people in the room.’ Like that. Now, you are confirming that it is You but you are not seeing it and it is not coming from a concept of ‘You.’

Q: Yes

A: If the thought was not there that ‘I am perceiving it’ you still can confirm that it is You that is perceiving. So, it’s independent of thought and independent of perception. So, if you don’t go with the mind-frustration for a bit more, then I say ‘How do you know that it is You that is aware of the solidity?’

Q: Because I Know.

A: You see? And yet, this Knowing is independent of concept. Is it dependent on a thought? On a belief?

Q: No.

A: Therefore, it is independent of concepts. And you are not seeing this You. Like you can’t tell me the shape, size, color or any attribute of it. And yet, there is a different type of Knowing, different type of Seeing. And for that Knowingness, it is absurd to say it is not You. It is so clear that it is I which is aware of all qualities; solidity, light, dark, big, small. Whatever quality you might give to It (to whatever is being perceived) it is I which is aware. Now, this ‘I’ cannot be seen and yet, you Know it is I. This Knowing is different. [Chuckles] This Knowing is different.

It’s like, many of you travel a lot, so sometimes you’re like ‘What city is this?’ You can forget. ‘Is this Bangalore? Is this Poona? Is it Chennai?’ [Chuckles] Like that. So, you can forget the city, you can forget which house you are in, you can even forget (if your eyes are closed) which body this is. You can even forget which body this is. But this, that you are aware of this quality, you need not be remembered. It is just so clear and apparent Right Now. And yet, this ‘I’ is not found sensorily, perceptually.

Now, if I propose to you that ‘Truly, truly, you cannot ever become any other ‘I’ but That’ …, and your job is to try: Try to become something which has a quality. Try to only be that. Something is appearing (like you say ‘solidity’) …, solidity is appearing. Now, try to jump out from this Knowingness of solidity and only into the solidity. Can you do it?

Q: No.

A: So, any quality, any sensation, anything…, jump out from this Knowingness and become only that sensation. Can you do it?

Q: No. But what can happen (this I want to clarify) …, what can happen is when I drop the label (of whether it is solid or anything) …, there is nothing to say actually when you drop the label.

A: Not only there is nothing to say, [Chuckles] when we drop the label, nothing has ever happened; in the sense that we might still say later that ‘Of course, the appearance is appearing, the perception is being perceived’ (all of these things) but even these are notions. (We will explore that in a bit.) But That which is aware of whatever the appearance might be, That Itself we have said that we can say ‘It is I’ and ‘It would be absurd to say that it is somebody else.’ And yet it is not an ‘I’ which you can find in any tangible sort of way.

So, this is the source of all frustration in the spiritual journey because you cannot find it in a tangible sort of way; and yet it is undeniable that it is I. Now, when I asked you ‘How is this known?’ you said ‘I just know. I don’t know how but I just know.’ So, this is the Knowingness which is independent of concepts and independent of perception.

And this cannot be stopped. [Chuckles] The state might change, any of the appearances might come and go, but can you not be aware or not have this Knowingness in this way?

This is the Unchanging.

Q: So, actually, my question …, I think now my question is getting little clarified for me. It is that this which ‘Is’ is so simple. So, the mind says ‘Why is this so simple’? Or ‘Why is it so, like: Now what?’ You know, actually I have been noticing in the last few weeks, few months; even through the tantrum I had few weeks ago, that actually, the suffering has really become less. It’s really like there is not so much suffering anymore. But I think just that little checking is happening; that okay, now it is like just this checking is happening. Also …

[Reading from chat]: “Father, my whole life I have been battling with depression and in the past few years it has been more pronounced. I don’t find meaning to my life and don’t know why I am here. Since almost three years now, I have stopped working, let go of all my friends and immersing more and more on spirituality. The deeper I go, the more lost I feel. The longing to find Truth and peace in my heart is so strong but I still keep getting in vicious circle of old habits, patterns, conditioning. I feel so helpless. And deep down I know it is not real intellectually. But somehow, I am still involved personally in the mind dramas. I feel like freedom is for everybody except me. My mind keeps telling me that ‘You will not get it.’ How do I get out of this illusion? I beg you, Father, please help me. Please lift this veil and guide me to the Truth. Please help me see that it is not real experientially.”

A: What is Real must be Here Now. Because it is the Unchanging; it does not come and go. That is the very fundamental of Vedanta, isn’t it? If we say that we are sharing the essence of Advaita Vedanta, we are saying ‘This inquiry is about what is Real.’ And what is Real cannot be an appearance. An appearance is that which comes and goes. Therefore, the Real, it does not come and go. Therefore, if we are able to recognize ‘What Is’ then we are able to recognize and not infer, not conclude based on conceptions but to just have an inner, like an intuitive insight.

Now, in this very moment Right Now, what is Here? Is there something even like depression?

Are these sensations (whatever these sensations might be, that which we call the body, that which we call the world, that which we call the mind) do they define you? From your Seeing …, I am asking of your Seeing, not your inferring.

What do you give permission to, to define you?

Do you give permission to, to define you? This tiny energy-construct called the mind which is just like ‘blah, blah, blah and blah, blah, blah’ …, can this one define you?

Can some sense of contraction or expansion define you?

Can some visual that you might label ‘memory’ define you?

Where is all of this happening?

Can a state define you? This waking state is here in which all these activities happen; it seems like there is a character here who seems to be depressed …, but can a waking state define you?

Who are you that can be defined?

Who are you whose boundaries these are?

What do you truly, truly know; if anything at all?

[Reading from chat]: “I Know I Exist.”

Yes. One answer (you have heard this answer in Satsang) is ‘I Know I Exist.’

So, this Knowing, the Knowing of Existence, what is it about?

Does it rely on any notion?

Does it rely on any concept?

Like, does the Knowing of Existence rely on thought, the concept, that ‘I Exist’? Or it would be independent of whether the concept is there or not?

This is beautiful. ‘I Know I Exist.’ Are we now saying that ‘I have the concept I exist’?

Or are we talking about a different Knowingness?

And besides Knowing that there is Existence, or I Exist, what else is Known in this way?

And even we can go as far as to ask: is that this translation also ‘I know I exist’ truly valid to what that Knowingness knows?

(I wonder if it makes sense what I am saying.) [Smiles]

Because it is coming through the filter of language to say ‘I Know I Exist.’ Now, can you refer back to ‘What is it that is truly known?’ And when you compare it with just this statement that ‘I Know I Exist’ does it really encapsulate what you truly know?

[Reading from chat]: “The concept is only needed to communicate the Knowing that is before any concepts.”

Yes. So, as long as we don’t become attached to any concept, that keeps us open and fresh. Like when the question is asked ‘What do you really know?’ we’re not so quick to go with past conclusions. But it invokes a fresh looking ‘What do I really know?’ And the same answer might come or not. That is fine; the answer in itself is not that important. [Smiles] Because the answer is tame; compared to the Reality of it, it is tame, like:

What is ‘I Exist’?

What is ‘I Exist’?

What is ‘Exist’?

Then we can use synonyms like ‘Being, Am’ …, all these synonyms. But these are all just labels. What is It? [Chuckles]

What is It?

You can say ‘Is’. But is this ‘Is’ capture-able in the term ‘Is’?

So, as long as it doesn’t become about the terms then, in a sense, we can call that true spirituality. The minute it starts becoming about the terms of spirituality, then it can become more like studying a certain philosophy or something.

Like, do we really know what ‘Exist’ is?

We will use another term; it’s like a dictionary. [Chuckles] Once we get caught up in this pool of concepts, then there is concept after concept; we can go from ‘Exist’ to ‘Am.’ What is ‘Am’? To ‘Being’. What is Being? To ‘Exist’. [Chuckles] You see? What do we really know in all of this? Four different terms. Does any of these terms truly encapsulate? No. That’s why he is absolutely right. These are just used for communication; just to point.

A: Sometimes we say ‘I’m here to chop off your head.’ What is Satsang? In a way, it is to chop off your head. What does your head say about this? [Laughs and laughter in the room]

Q: You have confused the head so much, it doesn’t know the meaning of freedom.

A: Good. Because it cannot know. It is not that it doesn’t know now, it is only that you are recognizing this.

So, this is the thing. You say ‘Chop off my head.’ Then the head says ‘Have you chopped it yet?’

I say it is chopped. Are you going to pick it up again?

Okay, for some of  you, this example might sound very gruesome. Indians are a bit more easy with these kinds of examples because they’ve heard of Ravana’s head being chopped 10 times and this kind of thing. You pick your metaphor; whatever works for you.

So, your head is now chopped. But it is inviting you to pick it up again. What are you going to do? [Looks around] Stay chopped?

Q: It’s chopped?

A: It’s chopped and it’s lying there, saying ‘Pick me up again. This time I’ll give you heaven, really!’ Then?

Q: I don’t know how many times I don’t pick it up but I still remain ‘I’.

A: This is the head speaking?

Q: No! This is not, this is like …

A: Heart speaking?

Q: [Laughs in frustration]

A: Okay, let’s do one thing. For a minute, you presume that you are wearing the next guy’s head. And all the thoughts that are coming, they have nothing to do with you. This experiment happened in Satsang; you came to this strange Satsang where you seem to be wearing a head which doesn’t belong to you and all the thoughts over there, they are somebody else’s; they have nothing to do with you. It’s a short-term project (experiment) for one hour (okay, one minute). [Laughs] For one minute, just see that they are somebody else’s; you have nothing to do with it. Let it say whatever it is saying, it has nothing to do with you. There was a mistaken head transplant. Somebody else got your head and you got somebody else’s. Now? [Looks around]

Q: Its peace. [Laughs]

A: ‘It’s peace?’ Is that a claim from the head?

Q: No, it’s like …

A: A sense.

Q: You see the difference, in a sense. Like I don’t have to do anything [Laughs] whatever is going on.

A: ‘I don’t have to do anything with that.’

Q1: It doesn’t make any sense, to the head.

A: To the head, it doesn’t make any sense. [Laughs] But it is more true than you can imagine. Because whatever it is saying is not about you.

So, in spirituality the nicer way of saying this is to say ‘Coming from head to heart.’ And the stronger way of saying this is to say ‘Chop off your head.’ [Chuckles] Whatever it is saying is not about you. Now, what’s your position?

What’s you position? [Looks around]

Let’s up the stakes. [Chuckles] So, there is entry to Nirvana waiting and the only question that the doorman on the gate asking is ‘What’s your position?’ Doorman says ‘I am here.’ [Makes a gesture of showing the gate] You have seen three people going through the gate already. [Gesture of people passing through the gate three times ‘Tannn, Tannn, Tannn’] You have come to the front of the line. ‘What’s your position?’ the doorman is asking.

Q1: Nothing.

A: But ‘nothing’ is also a position. [Looks around]

Q2: Neutral.

A: How are you neutral?

Q2: By not taking any positions.

A: ‘Not taking any positions’ is also a position, by taking the position of not taking positions.

Q2: Okay. [Laughs]

A: (Like what he was saying that day.) ‘Come on.’ The gate is closing. [Smiles. Looks around]

Q3: So, the gate …, is asking what?

A: ‘What’s your position?’ You have lost your head and whatever this one is saying is not about you; you see that. So now, only Nirvana is left, but there is a doorman. He is saying ‘What’s your position?’ With the right answer, you can go through.

Q4: You are not talking to me because I have already lost my head.

A: Doorman, not your head. [Laughs]

Q4: I feel stuck somewhere.

A: What’s your position? ‘Nothing’ is a wrong answer. ‘I don’t have a position’ is a wrong answer.

Q3: The doorman?

A: Door-man. (Sorry, my accent is like this.) [Chuckles]

Q: There is some sticky identity that shows …

A: That’s somebody else’s. It’s coming from the other head.

Q: The other head but I don’t know from the other head. Also, it’s popping up with ‘Okay, this is yours.’

A: Yeah, because it doesn’t know its head got replaced with somebody else’s.

Q: Yeah, but …

A: But you know because your Master has told you that it has nothing to do with you. Now, how it is sticky? The Master has told you that it has nothing to do with you. [Smiles] All conclusions are positions. [Smiles] Now, what’s your position? [Looks around]

Q3: There feels to be a freedom in seeing the inability to take a position.

A: ‘There seems to be a freedom when we see this inability to take any position.’ That’s a position. [Laughs] Even freedom is a position.

Q3: Yeah, the feeling …

A:  The feeling …, to know what the feeling is, is a position.

Q3: To know, yes …

A: When we label it as freedom …, when we label it is to know it or to claim to know it. [Laughs]

Q3: If you know that, then your head is gone.

A: Now, what’s left?

Q3: The inability to answer.

A: To know that is also a position. [Laughs]

Q3: But the doorman is asking you and without the words …, you can’t respond to the doorman.

A: [Laughs] But to know that also is a position that ‘You can’t respond.’

Q3: In the moment it is …?

A: In the moment, that response is not there that ‘I can’t respond.’ [Laughs]

Q3: But then …, there are no words coming.

A: To know that ‘There are no words coming’ is a position. To know what a word is, is a position. To know what no words are, is a position. To know what coming or going is, is a position.

So, in one short phrase there are ten lies. [Laughs] And ‘I will just be quiet’ is also a position. [Smiles]

Sorry. [Laughing] [Silence] Poor thing, I am holding his hand also. [Makes a gesture of questioner wanting to take his away hand] ‘Can I go please?’ [Laughter]

You’ll see what I am getting at in a bit. Because when I speak about notion-less-ness, even that becomes notional. You see? Even the idea of ‘remaining notion-less’ can be a notion of becoming notion-less. That is notional.

I am speaking about radical nakedness. I don’t know how to convey it to you. It’s like a radical Now-ness, a radical openness …, which is independent of any idea of Reality that your mind has.

Q: The escalator; it came to me that there’s some belief there, some unseen belief, of not wanting to get off the escalator because that’s all that’s known. And to desire something that can’t be imagined is …

A: He’s very right in what he’s saying because what happens is that we got used to moving from place to place based on what was offered. So, it’s like ‘Okay, I’ll get off the escalator if you tell me what is going to happen. Am I going to get to a better place? Is it going to be like this or that?’ Till you show them what is not on offer …, it’s like ‘If I’m going to let go of this branch, are you promising me that I will be alright?’ But no reassurance is coming because that would also be a ‘knowing.’

Now, that is why, in a sense, this is radical. It is like a leap of faith where you’re just like … [makes a gesture of sweeping away everything with his hand] you don’t know. You don’t have any guarantee about what is going happen; what is going to remain of you. So, then we cling onto the escalator because we feel like ‘At least I know this.’ [Chuckles] The mind can create this image of this limbo space that you have to jump into or something like that. It can feel like a scary unknown. And somewhere it is deeply ingrained in our human nature.

Like I told you about this example I saw the other day about this man who has been invited into this experiment. So, he is closed in a room and there’s nothing entertaining it the room. It’s all white walls. Nothing to distract him, nothing to engage his mind with; nothing there. There’s a small bell. After a while, he’s looking around and then … [makes a gesture of pressing the bell] And the minute he does that, he gets a shock. And it’s painful. It’s not just a mild shock, it’s painful. He’s like ‘I’m not touching that again!’ He decides ‘I’m not touching that again.’ He’s sitting. After 15 minutes, there is nothing. There is just nothing! So, you know what he does? He rings the bell. Because he prefers the experience of pain over the mind’s idea of nothing. This is a well-known experiment (I don’t know the name but if you look for it, you will find it) that if he is left in the room for one hour, he is pressing the bell at least 4-5 times.

So, this is what it is. It’s like ‘At least with this, I know something; that there’s an experience of pain, there’s an experience.’ It brings us back into some groove. What is being asked of you in Satsang, in a way, is a very big ‘ask.’ It’s like ‘Come with me, but I’m not going to tell you where I’m taking you. Get off the escalator, but I’m not telling you where I’m going.’ You’re like ‘Ananta, at least this still I know. I’ve been on this for a long time. 20 years I’ve been a spiritual seeker. I’ve had my moments of peace, I’ve had the vision of Krishna, I’ve had the kundalini, some chakras getting activated. At least this I know. Now, where are you taking me? What is going to happen there?’ I’m saying ‘I can’t tell you because it cannot be known.’ [Looks around the room] I cannot tell you because it cannot be known.

That is what, in a way, Guruji [Sri Mooji] means when he says ‘Be the cow jumping over the moon.’ Because it is every concept …, it’s a leap over everything that you think is valid in your existence; past and future, time and space. All of this is nothing in Reality for You.

But what seems familiar to you now is your limited-ness. What seems familiar to you now is also the seeker and you feel like ‘If I give this up, then what is left?’ and ‘What? I’ve spent so many years doing this. What has been the point? Where is my peace? I was promised peace. Are you at least promising me that?’

Not promising that.

Don’t know what peace is.

[Silence]

Sometimes I’m tempted to label even this kind of sharing and say ‘This is only for the very advanced’ but I don’t want to say that because then you have an idea of what advanced is. Then there is no poison for you to swallow. Because your ego will take hold of that and say ‘At least that will go down well because I’m very advanced.’ So, we don’t know ‘advanced’ and all this. Nobody knows anything.

[Reading from chat]: “Question about self-inquiry. I’m able to look if I am with another Being and talk it out. However, I have few Beings to talk with and should be able to hear myself and have a dialogue inside. Suggestions please and thank you with gratitude. An answer comes to me to write things down.”

It’s not a bad thing, if it allows us, in a way, to be more with the inquiry [Makes gesture of writing onto a notepad] sometimes it’s helpful. It brings a sort of attentive focus onto the inquiry if you write things down. It’s not a bad thing.

‘I am able to look if I’m with another Being…’ That’s actually why we have Satsang every day, Monday to Friday, because you’re guided every day into the inquiry. No matter what the expression might sound like, in every Satsang what is happening is that we are inquiring into the nature of Reality. And even after Satsang, if we don’t pick up the position quickly that Satsang is finished, you’ll find that Satsang doesn’t actually finish. If you don’t pick up the notion that ‘Satsang is over and now I’m back to the real world and I have to operate as an object within this world’ then Satsang is never ending. You’ll find the inquiry which was seeded within you in Satsang is very alive. So, whatever is the ‘dose’ of the ‘daily medication’ needed, it is provided every day. That’s why it’s so beneficial.

So, see if you can drop any conclusions, even about this; whether you need another to inquire with, whether alone is okay. Drop all these conclusions and just start empty. Start empty again.

This is very good and I would suggest it to all of you, especially in the times where it feels like some conflict is starting to arise or some trouble is starting to come, just see that something has gotten built up, picked up.

Yesterday we were just having a bit of a sangha meeting about organizational things and after a while something happened and things get picked up. So, I was saying ‘Empty, empty. Let’s start again.’ [Sweeping his hands repeatedly in front of himself like wiping something away] ‘Empty, empty, empty, empty, empty.’ Like that.

You can see that. Just as you see some buttons are getting pushed, something is happening, know that you’ve picked up some notions, and just remind yourself with any of these beautiful words: ‘Empty, empty, empty; nothing, nothing, nothing; open, open, open.’ Just like that. And what are these? They are just reminders of what you are naturally experiencing anyway. Your emptiness is naturally Here. Your openness is naturally Here.

It’s like we jump off the treadmill (in a way). Like we’re running, running, running and we feel like ‘I have to run.’ I’m remembering this YouTube video. I wonder how many of you have seen it. This lady comes from a village and it’s probably the first time she’s coming to a city. The family must have taken her to a mall or something like that. Now, this lady (she’s an old-ish lady) she’s on the escalator. But the escalator is going up and she’s trying to come down on it. (Have you seen this one?) She’s trying to go down on an escalator that is going up. And she did a very good job actually because she came almost to the bottom. But now, she’s running out of energy. She’s [Makes gesture of sweating and panting] able to maintain her position but she’s not able to just come down. She’s just … [Makes gesture of jogging in place] … stuck. [Chuckles]

So, a lot of our spiritual journey is a bit like that. It can feel like ‘If I just do this a little bit more then I’m coming to my destination; just a little bit more.’ But somewhere, we feel like we come to a point where we just get stuck. Because actually we think that if we just know more and more, if we understand more and more, if we pick up better and better spiritual concepts, then it is the destination. But the thing is that you always seem to be stuck over there.

What should that lady do? [Silence] What should she do? It’s a simple answer. [Chuckles]

[Sangha all talking at once]

A: She can’t get off, because she’s in the middle.

Q: Go in the direction it is going and then get off.

A: Yeah. Just let go. Let go of the effort and you see that it’s fine. So, this is a lot like a spiritual seeker, in a way, because initially it can seem like you’re making some progress by knowing more and more, by doing more and more, by putting the effort in. How many come to Satsang and say ‘Father, all I need is that last push! Push me off that cliff!’ And I’m already saying ‘So, where are you standing?’ This is the thing. ‘But I NEED that final push!’ And I’m like ‘Oh. If you already know what you need, then you know too much.’ [Chuckles] Then you know too much. If you know where you are, what is happening to you, that is just ideas. But where are you actually?

If you have the idea that you are a seeker, that means you have the idea of a journey; of getting somewhere. And it’s all nonsense, actually. It’s all nonsense. There is nothing that you will get. ‘Get’ means something outside of you. Isn’t it? What can you get?

Nobody says ‘I will get a nose.’ Why can’t you get a nose? Because you already have it. No? [Chuckles] You see?

So, how will you get to the Self?

Q:  I don’t think that it’s like we want to ‘get’ to the Self. It’s what we imagined …, what you thought that having the Self would mean. It would mean happiness, the end of suffering or the truth about who you are.

A: Yes.

Q: So, you begin by feeling that you’re not there. Right?

A: This is the fundamental mistake. The fundamental error is this, that the unchanging Self is not what you must be. Because if the Self is unchanging, it could never have gone anywhere. So, you must already be that.

And what do we even call it? This is the mystery, you see? We even call it the Self. [Chuckles] ‘I am trying to get to MySelf.’

Self means what?
What I am.

What are you trying to get to?
What you are.

[Laughing] I don’t know whether you see the humor in this.

Who is the one trying to get to the Self?

I am.

And what does Self mean?
What I am.

I am trying to get to the Self.

The Self is what?
What I am.

It is more hilarious than saying ‘I’m trying to sit where I’m sitting right now.’

Are you trying to sit where you’re sitting right now?

[Pretending seriousness]: You have to try, okay? Nothing comes in life without effort. No pain, no gain. Try, try. [Chuckles] (This is my evil twin.) [Laughing] What will you do to try and sit where you’re sitting? Come on, try. Don’t give up. Have you given up? You can do it! You’re almost there. You just need that final push to sit exactly where you’re sitting.

[Laughter in the room] Why is it funny? [Laughing] Because this is what we’re believing about getting to the Self. Because we have believed what? Like she’s saying, we have believed the ideas about what that should be. ‘It should be just Bliss! It should be just this or just that.’

Then, if it is just ‘something’ then how is it freedom? [Smiles] It’s all nonsense actually. Like if you feel like ‘Okay, freedom means it is just that’ …, then how is it free? To be just ‘something’ means it’s constrained; it’s limited. So, we’ve filled our heads up with all garbage. And we cannot really fill our heads up with the Truth.

Yesterday after Satsang again, I played for everyone this video about the McGurk affect. What happens in the McGurk affect is that all that the one is saying is ‘Bah, bah, bah…, Bah, bah, bah.’ But when the lips are moving ‘Fah, fah, fah’ and the sound continues to be ‘Bah, bah, bah’ we actually think we are hearing the sound ‘Fah, fah, fah’ when actually the sound is just ‘Bah, bah, bah’ (presumably). Now, the idea can be that we can have this idea that the sound ‘Fah, fah, fah’ is coming from the computer. But the one not looking at the video is hearing the sound ‘Bah, bah, bah’ coming from the computer.

So, we can never really confirm what is coming from the so-called ‘outside.’ We can only say that ‘This is what I’m perceiving, inside my Being, inside myself.’ This is all that we can confirm. We don’t know, in any phenomenal way, what is outside. We don’t know of the distinction between inside and outside. Yet, upon this seeming-separation, all our duality seems to be built, that there is a ‘me’ here and ‘other’ is outside, but we never truly know this separation. It is just an idea.

[Silence]

And as we look like this more and more and more and more, with integrity, with honesty and innocence, you will see that all your conclusions are made up; are ideas premised on other ideas. But at the bottom of these ideas there is no fundamental truth. It’s just a house of cards (as I call it) of ideas. Now, if you recognize this and you see that everything that you think you are right about is just an idea, it has no fundamental truth about it (there is no truth-i-ness in these ideas) then you will come to a very naked, very open space. It doesn’t have to be a spatial space, although sometimes it does feel like that also. But don’t worry about the spatial-ity (the sense of spaciousness) of the space. It is like a conceptual emptiness. Whether the experience of that is even spatial-ity spacious, that is not so important. What is important is that we recognize that nothing that we hold in our conceptual basket has a fundamental basis or some truth about it.

So, then this is very beautiful because all of us, at some level, might still believe that we are right about something. And this sense of being right about some concept can now also become about spiritual concepts. But what have the Masters constantly said? There is nothing truthful in even spiritual concepts. At best, they are pointers or they themselves are thorns used to remove the other thorns.

Now, you will find that there is no place for the separation to rest. It always rests on a conclusion. But if you remove all conclusions, it can seem a bit strange. But that strangeness is okay, that wobbliness is okay, because this is the openness that I am speaking of. This is the notionless Existence; the Unborn.

[Silence]

So, don’t take any concept; even now what you’re hearing in Satsang. Allow these words to demolish whatever conceptual righteousness you are holding onto and just let the mind float away. When you let the mind float away, you are coming naturally to the recognition of the unclouded Unborn. The unclouded Unborn. The Unborn is always there but it seems to get clouded by our ideas. So, as you allow the mind to float away, you will see … This.

Now, whether you call it ‘Isness’ whether you call it ‘the Absolute’ …, whatever term you use for It, it is fine. But don’t quickly expect your mind to confirm this. Because if you go to this mind and say ‘Okay, my friend, am I seeing the Unborn?’ what do you think it’s going to say? Mostly, it will try and distract you from something and mostly it will claim it. It will say ‘Yes, yes! This is it. This is the Unborn. You’re getting it.’ But even these are nothing but set-ups for failure.

Because if you buy the claim ‘You got it!’ then you will also later buy the claim that you can lose it.

Because this is putting it again in phenomenal terms. So, then allow this one to just come and go, with all its claims, doubts; whatever it has to say.

[Silence]

Now, it will come and say very holy things, very spiritual things. ‘You see now, this is the Awareness, okay? This is the Absolute Self! Come, come; stay here.’ Like that. Now, if you buy into these claims, you will have the urge to proclaim it. But a proclamation is just more dust; it’s more cloudiness. So, don’t hold onto any idea whatsoever, even if it is spiritual-sounding. Because it is on these spiritual-sounding ideas that your spiritual seeker identity will continue to fester.

[Silence]

That’s why I’ve been so relentless over the last few weeks in saying that: If you know even one thing, it is to know too much.

And it’s been a few weeks now, so it could be that for some of you now the mind is on guard about this now. When it is being said that ‘Knowing even one thing, it is to know too much’ it can be like ‘No, no, Ananta! Not that again! I’m doing so well with this now, but that is boring, it is … ’ (whatever form of resistance it might be buying into). We can use this instrument to see that it is nothing. Allow it to come and go; whatever it is saying.

To know even one thing is to know too much.

And then it will say ‘So, does that mean that there is no Knowingness, there is no true Awareness?’ See, all your spiritual doubts will come. But there is a question:

What do you know when you know nothing?

And this inquiry gives you no escape route. So, either you will run [Chuckles] if Consciousness wants to play that way still with individuality, it will run; or that expression of Consciousness will seem to run. Or it will come to a dropping of this body/mind; dropping of the identity with the body/mind.

Because this kind of inquiry done with integrity and openness is bound to truly make the mind run out of moves …, except the moves of running away, which could be ‘Now this is getting too boring, I’ve got this now’ or any kinds of things which would say ‘No, no, no, enough!’ But you don’t decide ‘Enough.’ You let me decide that for you. You let me decide that for you.

[Silence]

It is said that the wise ones not only learn from their mistakes, they also learn from the mistakes of others…, which also means that the wise ones also learn from lessons that seeming-others are having. So, at least you can trust me this much to See that if I’m saying this that nothing which is fundamentally true you can know conceptually, then you know it must be after this inquiry has been taken to its fruition.

[Silence]

So, this inquiry is nothing but an open window to let all the garbage get thrown out.

Because to know even one thing is to know too much.
What is it that you know when you know nothing?

Q: It’s not a question. It is just a feeling since the morning to come and just sit.

A: Ahh.

Q: Just sit here.

A: Yes.

Q: Ah, I do not even know, Father. But I have to just come up to you. [Chuckles]

A: [Smile] Shall we do one Papaji [Sri Poonjaji] on you?

Q: Yes, of course. [Smiles]

A:  You want to sit; now you sat. [Smiles] Then what do you want? [Chuckles] (You remember this one? You remember this video? The same one, the four-minute one.)

Q: Oh, yeah.

A: This lady she comes and says ‘Can I come and sit there?’

And then he [Papaji] says ‘Okay, chalo aajaoo; come, sit. You wanted to sit, now you sat.’

She says ‘Can you show me the Self?’ (Or ‘me’ or something).

He says ‘What you want, what you want? Bliss?’

She says ‘Not Bliss; me, Self.’

A: (Me or Self; what did she say? I can’t remember.) [Smiles]

Sangha: ‘I want to meet my Self.’

A: He says ‘You want to meet yourself. Where is it? Where do you what to go? Will you take a train? Will you take a plane? Will you take a ship? Will you take a car? Will you walk?’

(I am adding on top of this, of course) [Smiles]

So, she says ‘Not possible that way.’

He says ‘Why? Why not possible?’ (It is a very beautiful Satsang.)

‘Why not possible?’

She says ‘Because it is inside.’

He says ‘Where inside?’

She says ‘Here, here, here.’ [Hands pointing towards body]

He says ‘Okay, then stay there. Do not move. If it is inside, you stay there.’

And then what happens is that what I call ‘the face palm moment.’ [Smiles] Face, palm. [Gesture of palm on the face] ‘It was so simple! It Is always just been this!’ [Smiles]

What makes a journey out of this search? Is it the idea that ‘I will get to it in some phenomenal, objective sort of way?’ But the Sages had made it clear that it is not possible like that because ‘Everything that is phenomenal is changing. But your Self is unchanging.’ That much is understood. If that much is understood, that every experience of everything phenomenal, that all states they are coming and going, they are changing in quality and quantity, they are subject to time and space so I cannot find my Self in the realm of time and space … then you should ask this question: ‘But I cannot look for anything outside of time and space.’

[Smiles] This question should come more often maybe than it does. Because this part is obvious, even to the intellect, isn’t it, that if it is unchanging, I cannot find it as an object in time and space.

So, I feel like this intellect should ask this question more often maybe, which is to say ‘But I can only search in time and space, so what are you saying?’

Then the Sage says ‘Look inside.’ He is not saying ‘Look inside the body.’ No Sage has ever said ‘Look inside the body.’ [Smiles] Of course, the surgeons can look inside the body. What do they find? Just material objects again; again, they are changing.

What is it? When you go inside, where do you go?

And because it is so natural for us in way, we have never questioned this. [Smiles] It is so natural, this so called ‘inside’ …, this inside to which even the play of memory, the play of imagination, the play of thoughts, the play of emotions, sensations, are also on the outside of this (or at best, we can say ‘appearing within this, which is inside’).

But what is this ‘inside’?

Does this inside truly have an outside?

Or just like (we will admit readily) the dream also happens within this inside …, could it also be that every phenomenal experience happens only inside This?

Now, a worthy question you might want to contemplate is: What are the instruments we have? Instruments of perception, instruments of conceptualization and let’s say instruments of actions; all these. Those obviously we cannot use. We cannot get to God or the Self in an objective sort of way. So, action gone, perception gone, conceptualization gone. Anything else you have left?

Q: Just let go.

A: Of…? Just these instruments. What are we letting go of? Even these so-called tools.

Now I’m going to say something which might seem contrary to what a lot of spirituality is also teaching you. [It says] that you can get to the Truth using some sort of control over your attention. Well, I’m not completely debunking that idea but I’m proposing a simpler way, a Sahaja way, which is to let go of even this instrument called attention; even this tool.

Instruments of action: gone, conceptualization: gone. Perception and attention … (perception and attention are similar, but just to make a distinction between sensory instruments and that which drives them, in a sense, is this tool called attention) … let go of even that.

Let it go. Let go of all your notions, concepts, experiences, perceptions, attention. [Silence] And allow me to call that Freedom. You don’t bother with the term, but I have to use some language, at least for now.

[Reading from chat]: “Beloved Father, Truth has no idea of Itself, neither the unchanging or the changing Self. These are just the ideas in the Self.”

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. But what I’m saying is I’m further inviting you to not be scared to drop even these ideas. Don’t be scared to let go of anything you think you’ve understood. Just let go.

Then you might say ‘I have another tool, which is my intellect, my reasoning. I can discriminate between true and false.’ All these plays of opposites can come with the play of this intellect. So, let this intellect also go. Leave everything completely open and free.

See if you can let go of any attempt to define yourself, to make a reference point to yourself, to make any sensation or any perception to divide into a ‘me’ and ‘you.’ Notice these attempts and let them go.

I’m pointing at you. [Points at Sangha] Notice that in this also there can be some self-definition saying that ‘He is pointing at me.’ Why don’t we say ‘Me is pointing at he or she?’ It is just that we use some visual perspectives and we use some sensations to define a ‘me’ and then, by definition, as soon as there is a ‘me’ there is a sense of ‘otherness.’ Then everything else becomes separate from this ‘me.’

So, although for now all this stuff might sound a bit strange to you (pointing at you; ‘I is pointing at I’ …, all this stuff can seem strange) you don’t even have to define it that way but at least it’s more accurate than saying ‘He is pointing at me.’ Although for a while it might seem a bit strange, it’s only because we got used to some unnatural way of existence. In your naturalness, these divisions are not there. We got used to defining ourself on the basis of some sensations that we call the body and therefore, defining another and others based on other visual sensations that we feel are bodies.

We start to recognize that even the idea of freedom that we have is just so mental. And everybody has a version of freedom. If you ask someone who is not in Satsang ‘What would freedom mean to you?’ they would say ‘I should just be free to do whatever I want’ or ‘Whatever comes to my mind, that I should be able to do. That would be my freedom.’ Now, in Satsang, we come to this point where we realize that although it seems like we came to Satsang for this sort of freedom, actually we don’t know what we’re actually even looking for.
I may ask you ‘So, why do you come to Satsang?’ Then you may say ‘Freedom’ or ‘To be in the Presence’ (something like this) but actually, you don’t know. And this not-knowing is very helpful because everything you do know about it will trouble you here. Everything you do know about freedom also will trouble you here because that will become part of your ‘report card.’ [which sangha gives themselves]

I’ve often said that my arch-nemesis is this checker guy. The checker guy who is constantly bench-marking and saying ‘You’re doing very well today’ or ‘You’re not doing so good’ or ‘You’re being free; you’re being open’ or ‘You’re being very caught up.’ And if you’re judging yourself in this way, then that is not the freedom that I’m pointing to. And on what basis do you judge yourself? Just some ideas that you have about what this should be. Isn’t it? Like ‘How much peace should be there; how much joy should come.’ Or some prior experience. ‘I had a certain set of experiences and that should be the constant.’ We don’t actually know any of this but we presume that this is how it should be. It’s all still part of the opposites of the mind.

But when I am speaking of the truest recognition which is available in your notion-less-ness, in your concept-less-ness, in the un-label-ed life, not only is your truest recognition available, it is completely apparent to you.

[Silence]

So, if the Truth is available in our openness, if the complete Truth is available in our openness …, so, you met God; suppose. (Let me use the term, you don’t bother with it.) Suppose you met God and you realized that God’s Presence is constant. It’s always just here and you are wondering to yourself ‘Wow! How was I ever confused? It is so apparent. It is so clear. I can’t believe I was lost. It is done. It is done!’ Then you come across this stall, a street seller. Now this street seller has various qualities of (let’s say) dust. There’s some low-quality dust which is about materialism, about things which will come and go; but the quality of dust keeps getting better and better. At the end you have, like, spiritual dust. He says ’If you put this in your eyes, then you’ll be just fine.’ So, which dust will you buy? The material dust, the relationship dust, the money dust, the body-identity dust or the freedom-seeker dust? What will you sprinkle your eyes with?

[Sangha]: Nothing.

Nothing, no? It will be very silly of us to come to this simplicity of just Being and then feel like something else needs to be added to our life. And whatever we feel should be added on top of this Being is just nothing but conceptual dust.

So, we realize that it’s very silly? Realize or no? Then don’t do it. Because that’s exactly what it is.

[Asking someone]: What happened? You look so lost. [Laughs]

Q: I don’t know what’s happening.
A: I’m saying that God is Here Now. It is undeniable. Listen. Whatever happened, happened. Now, I am saying something. God is Here Now. Now, if you add some story on top of that, whatever the story might be, it is just buying from that dust-seller and sprinkling it in your eyes. It’s just as simple as that.

[Whispers] ‘It’s very good quality dust. You’ll meet God in three life times if you put this one.’
Will you buy it?

And there’s also a variety of this dust which is ‘Don’t buy the dust.’ (I wonder if you can hear this.) There is also a variety of dust which is like ‘Don’t buy dust. God is already Here.’ So, will you pick that up and put it in your eyes?

Like I was saying the other day, all that the Master is telling you is to: Empty your cup. Empty your cup. Empty your cup. Let go. Let go. Let go.

But we’re filling our cup with ‘Empty your cup, empty your cup, empty your cup.’ We’re holding on to ‘Let go, let go, let go.’ And it’s fine; at a particular point where it seems like ‘Okay, these are the thorns we’re using to remove other thorns.’ But I can say for many, many, many of you, this is the only thorn which is left, the spiritual seeker one. The only potent mental concepts you have now are your spiritual concepts. Isn’t it? For many of you, we can say it’s like this.

Allow your mind to drop. Allow it to drop, it will.

As you drop your belief from it, its potency, its magnetism, its gravitation, will not seem strong. And then you will find that it is only the mind which has convinced you about things like time-space, cause, effect, past and future.

And none of this is truly the content of your experience.

That is the only way, using all these notions, that the mind can grasp it.

Because ‘What Is’ is too much for the mind.

The Truth is never really replicated by the mind. It is always just lost in translation.

Lose your reference point.

It is only an idea that some sensations are You; it is just an idea that some sensations are You.

One-way to say it in language is to say that: You are that infinite space in which all these sensations are coming and going.

And then to say that: Actually, You are aware even of this space.

And in your openness, none of these actually has to even be said.

And the thing is that even the pointing of ‘the empty cup’ is not valid. Because your cup Is empty Now.

But do not fill your cup with the idea that ‘My cup is empty now.’

Now when we make a claim ‘I got it’ what is that you actually could get? What could actually be gotten?

If you had a spiritual experience; we all know what happens when you try to hold on to anything, including this spiritual experience. All experiences, they come and go. So, have you actually got anything?

All the other getting is just conceptual. Either conceptually or perceptually whatever we think we got or we can get, it is not about the Truth. Whatever you think you can get as an understanding or as a perception is not it.

Now, how will you struggle? [Smiles] If you cannot get it as perception and you cannot get it as a concept, how will you struggle? Because we can only struggle to get it either mentally or perceptually.

Deeper than this, there is no struggle. That opposite of getting or not-getting is not present when go below these layers of conception and perception. [Silence]

[Smiles] I am saying ‘How will you struggle?’ Some of you look troubled. [Chuckles] It is just that the letting go of this habit can seem a bit difficult; it can seem a bit of a struggle. But is it at least clear to us that it cannot be found in this way? The unchanging Self cannot be found in the realm of the changing. And this realm is constantly changing and these thoughts are constantly changing. That much is clear? So, at least it is clear that it is not possible to find the Absolute, unchanging Reality, with these instruments of perception and conceptualizing. That part is clear.

A: What is in the space between your thoughts?

Q: Escape route.

A: Okay, without this thought, what is it? [Chuckles]

Q: Nothing.

A: Nothing like the nothing of the empty glass? ‘There is nothing.’ Is it like that nothing? Is it still in that way where the glass is either empty or full; that kind of empty or full? Is it like that?

Are you still around, in the space between your thoughts? Are you still around?

Q: No. For a few seconds, I was not there.

A: So, if you were not still around then who witnessed the space between two thoughts?

Q: Actually, it shouldn’t make any difference whether the glass is full or half.

A: These are also thoughts. Leave them. Who witnesses the space between two thoughts?

Q: That which doesn’t exist.

A: That can witness? Something that doesn’t exist can witness something?

Q: No.

A:  Cannot witness. Then? Who is it?

Q: Me. It’s me.

A: If it is you, what is the shape of this you? … (to copy the lyrics of famous pop song. [Chuckles] ‘What is the shape of you?’ Am I the only one who makes these Advaita references when I come across pop culture? [Laughter] My son used to hear ‘Shape of You’ (my kids). In Satsang also I’m hearing this and I’m just like ‘That’s an Advaita reference.’) [Laughs]

What is that ‘you’?

Q: Then you get into the helplessness about it.

A: Who gets into the helplessness? [Laughs]

Q: This fellow that has been dancing all the time.

A: This fellow. [Laughs] Who has been watching the dance?

Q: Me only again.

A: The one that watches, is that troubled by the dance?

Q: No.

A: Then who is troubled? Like she came today and said ‘I want to get rid of the me! I’m tired of it! I’m done!’ [Questioner Laughs] And they are actually holy-sounding words, in a way. [Chuckles] But somewhere we have to look at that spiritual seeker also and say ‘Hello. But who are you?’ [Chuckles]

This is the simple thing. The ego’s mask. Like I keep saying, if you go to people on road and say ‘Are you egoistic?’ They will say ‘Of course not. I’m not egoistic. My brother in law, he is very egoistic because he is very arrogant.’ And then if you say ‘Do you consider yourself to be a person?’ [Then they say]: ‘What are you saying? Of course, I am a person. Aren’t you?’[Chuckles] But this sense of personal identity, this sense of separateness, duality itself, is ego. And this rests only on the concepts that we consider to be true; the ideas which we feel are representative of Reality. But no idea is ever representative of Reality.

Then does this mean that this is all hopeless? [Smiles] We are not nihilistic. What I’m only saying is that:

Just because you can’t conceptualize it, doesn’t mean that you cannot recognize it.

But you are too busy trying to conceptualize it, to ‘get it’ as a learned thing, as a knowledge which is mental. That’s why I asked you:

What do you know when you know nothing?

If to know one thing is to know too much,

what is it that you know when you know nothing?

Q1: I mean, that’s how we use the language.

A: So, what’s the answer? What do you know when you nothing?

Q1: Actually, there is no answer …

A: You know that? [Laughter]

Q1: Well, there is no answer but when you’re asking us to put it in language, it comes like that.

A: So, what do you know when you know nothing?

Q1: Mind knows everything. [Laughs]

A: You know that? ‘Mind knows everything?’ Does it? Do you know that?

Q1: I can see that. I mean, it seems like that. [Laughs] It’s claiming.

A: But what do you really know when you know nothing?

I could even ask you actually ‘What do you really know?’ and you would come to the same answer. Because it just seems like we know so much.

Q1: Actually, we don’t know anything.

A: Actually, till last year even I felt like I knew what is up and what is down. Yeah. [Laughs] Even till last year. [Smiles]

Q1: Actually, I don’t know anything.

A: Now, what do you know?

Q1: Nothing. [Laughs]

A: You know that you know nothing?

Q1: Yeah.

A: See? Get rid of this knowing also.

Q1: Get rid of this knowing also?

A: Empty of any conceptual position, what is left?

Q1: Why can’t it just go at once? Why does it keep on coming, something or the other?

A: You just said ‘You know nothing’ but you claim to know all this?

Q1: Like it comes; it’s coming. [Laughter]

A: This is the thing. If we feel like we have to give in to whatever is coming from the mind, then we will keep playing with this.  Now, let it come and let it go. Not possible?

Q1:  Possible. Little, little possible. [Laughs]

A: Little, little possible. [Smiles]

Q2: How did you lose that up and down?

A: Because even in that, I was making a reference about myself. I can’t find a single ‘me’ here. I remember there was a time where this mouth used to move and I used to feel that there is one somebody sitting here speaking. Now, it’s just heard. [Chuckles] It’s speaking. This hand is moving. [Makes a gesture of hand movement] I remember I used feel like ‘Oh, I’m moving my hand.’ I don’t find that one. [Smiles] So what shall I say is up and down?

It’s ‘crazy business’ for the mind, okay? So, you have to be bit crazy if you’re here. [Chuckles]

Our only suffering is what we think we’re right about. We can call it knowledge, we can call it all kinds of fancy things, but actually, ultimately it comes to that:

What do we feel like we are right about?

That is the one that is going to cause grievances, resentment, pride, guilt, arrogance; all these various names for suffering. Sometimes we use the word suffering in spirituality like ‘Oh, it’s a human condition to suffer.’ But when you break it down, what is it? It’s all of these things. No? Pride, guilt, grievances, resentment, frustration, expectation (all these ‘…tions’ especially). [Chuckles]

Q1: Self image.

A: It’s all about self-image. But if you were just open, all our barriers, all our defenses are only the things we think we are so right about. And it is completely true about this also because sometimes I get smart comments on Facebook like ‘Oh, but you are saying that, so you must be feeling right about this.’ [Chuckles] No, it’s all nonsense. Forget it. It’s all nonsense. It’s like saying ‘Everything is false.’ Now, is that itself true or false? [Chuckles] It cancels itself out at one level …, but if you want to just give it to the mind and say ‘Okay, but is that true or is that false?’ it becomes like that. So, if our mind is still playing smart, just don’t indulge so much in that smartness. All our suffering is the arrogance about being right about something. ‘Life should be this way, it should not be this way; he should be like this, he should not be like this.’

This is also very popular in spirituality these days where people are very quick to call you Master but they are equally quick to then tell you what you should be doing. It’s like ‘Ah, you are my Master.’ [Bows head] ‘But why you do it like that? Why you don’t do it like this?’ [Laughter] But if you already know, then who is the Master and who is the disciple in this relationship? [Laughter] It’s a very common thing which happens. Isn’t it? [Chuckles] Because actually we are still oppressed by this mental master, and while someone is dancing to the tunes of that one, we are very happy with it. The minute we start confronting beliefs, that is when the opposition comes. Nobody hangs on to beliefs considering it is false, isn’t it? If you already knew it was false, you would not have it. So, if the Master comes and he is trying to bring you to this conceptual emptiness, it’s bound to confront your belief systems and that doesn’t always seem like fun. [Smiles] That does not always seem like fun. Isn’t it? But as we are open (that’s why my favorite word in English is: open) then right, wrong, left, right, up, down [do not matter].

What concept from the mind would be inviting for you, unless you consider you considered yourself to be ‘something’? The picture is appearing on the screen. One of the pictures we got attached to and said ‘this is me.’ And then wanted to solve it for this ‘me.’ [Smiles]

But are you the screen? Or the picture?

Are you the light? [Smiles] Or the character?

That is like the Bhagavan’s [Sri Raman Maharishi’s] beautiful question ‘In whose light does the sun shine?’

The other day we had beautiful visitor also, Sri. Prahalad Thippaniya. He sings these Kabir Bhajans; very beautiful. He was saying that ‘Find That, where there is no Sun or Moon. Find that house where there are no pillars.’ [Smiles] Isn’t it beautiful? What else did he say?

[Sangha]: Without a candle, is light.

A: Find that, without a candle, where there is light.

[Sangha]: No happiness, sadness; no right, no wrong.

A: No happiness, sadness; no right, no wrong.

[Sangha]: Without a tree, there are fruits.

A: Without a tree, there are fruits. [Smiles]

[Sangha]: That is the most beautiful home that…

A: That is the most beautiful home that you can have.

[Sangha]: That is where the beloved resides.

A: Where the beloved resides. You see, at least there is one line of assurance is there. Otherwise to the mind, that sounds like the horrible place to be. [Chuckles] To the mind, it sounds like limbo. So, at least that one line of reassurance is there ‘That’s where the Beloved is.’  [Chuckles]

[Sangha member]: No day or night.

A: No day or night.

[Sangha]: No inside, outside.

A: Now, was the Sage just fooling around? (‘I just say these things to confuse them.’) Or is it a real possibility?

Are we going to be so attracted to ‘But what about my real life?’ None of us really knows what our ‘real life’ is but still, in Satsang, we remember our ‘real life’ so much, like ‘In the real world; what about in the practical arena?’ But you came to Satsang not for business advice. [Smiles] You came for ‘the self-discovery.’ To discover This; what Kabir is talking about …, which is empty of all opposites. Even the opposites of true and false do not apply; of light dark and don’t apply; of up and down don’t apply.

So, is this just a fantasy of a Sage? Or is he speaking from a recognition, which is palpable, which is alive? For thousands of years in Vedanta, the Sages have said ‘Find That is which is unchanging.’ Now where to find that? [Smiles] If you look in front you, can you find That? Look behind, look up, look down. Where in time and space you can find That which is unchanging? Where is it that you can look, which is not in time and space? Is it even possible for you to look at something which is not in time and space? [Smiles]

So, either the Sages were lying (that ‘Actually, we know that they can never look there anyway so let us just fool them.’) Or they were on to something? They came to a discovery, which is beyond time and space. That means it must be available Here and Now.

How to look? [Smiles] When we say ’We look inside’ …, where do you go when you look inside? Inside; what is it? Is it inside the body? [Smiles] When you look inside, inside what are you looking? Inside the body? How to define it? If you are looking inside the body, you will find flesh, blood, bones. So, what is this place inside? [Smiles] How big is it? How many square meters of this inside do you have? [Smiles] We are so busy measuring the sizes of our houses. How many square feet? How many square feet is your house on the outside; that we all know. How many square feet is your house on the inside? [Smiles] How will you start measuring? [Smiles]

All your conceptual knowledge, all our notions are about the phenomenal; the appearance of that comes and goes. And none of that applies to the unchanging Truth of what You Are.

Q: I feel this person is very stinky.

A: This person is very sticky? Stinky. Sticky and stinky.

Q: Yeah, maybe both and this is just getting unbearable. Like just not able to tolerate anything here as person.

A: As person, yeah. And, you know what I’m going to ask. [Chuckles] The one that is not able to tolerate the ego is which one? So, we can say that ‘I notice the ego playing out here, the individuality, the one who has all the grievances and the guilt and the pride and all of these things, and I don’t want it anymore. I don’t want it anymore.’ Now, this ‘I’ is which one?

Q: [Laughs] That one only…

A: That one only. So, the thief dressed as the cop wanting to be rid of the thief. What to do with that one?

Okay, so tell me what survived this moment? Did that one survive? The ego survived?

Q: No.

A: No. Then? I know the mind will come and say ‘But it can’t be that simple. I’ve been in Satsang for years.’ But suppose you let that also go?

The untruth can never survive this moment. It has to be built afresh.

But just like the tree, you pull one leaf, one branch, and it seems like the entire tree of conditioning is back. So, Here, Now, is it ‘God Now’ or ‘me-ow’?

Q: It’s both.

A: Both? Show me. Show me the ‘me’?

Q: Me? ‘Me’ is really sticky. When I feel like me, it comes like a snake.

A: Where is it? Where? Where? Where? Where? [Laughs]

Q: The mind here … [Laughs] but it’s just …

A: But Now, Now, Now, Now, Now, Now? I know that because you buy into the idea it can feel like ‘I don’t want to leave it so easily. I’m here just for two days for Satsang so today I really have to resolve it with Father because I know Father is going to just say ‘Now, Now’ and I’ll be okay Now; but when I go back? It will be back.’ Isn’t it? But is this true, in the sense that, is there an existent entity called the ego, which is Here Now, and you want it to go away?

Q: No, it’s just that contracted feeling, I mean, which comes.

A: Okay, you say it’s a contracted feeling. Now, the contracted feeling is appearing in isolation? It’s by itself? Or is it within you?

Q: It’s within …

A: It’s within? It’s within what?

Q: It seems to be within … I mean inside …

A: If there’s a contracted feeling, there must be a space in which that is arising. Isn’t it?

Q: Yeah.

A: That feeling is contracted; leave it. Let it be contracted. It’s okay. Don’t trouble yourself with it. What is that space in which it is arising?

Q: It’s just a space. I don’t know even how to term it.

A: Okay. It is just space. And you are what?

Are you just something stuck in the middle of them? There is one space over there, there is one contracted feeling over there and you, poor thing, have to deal with both of these guys. Is it like that?

Q: I feel myself also to be in the space; like appearing in the space.

A: Okay, so you see that you-yourself are also in the space as an appearance?

Q: Yeah.

A: And that which witnesses this? [Silence]

If you are an object in the space, who is witnessing all of this?

The contraction, you, space; what witnesses all of this?
What is the color of that one? The shape of that one?

Tell me one attribute of this one?

Q: Nothing. Nothing.

A: There is nothing. Then, how can it witness?

Q: I don’t know. It’s just seen that it is there.

A: It is there, but usually we say, okay ‘What is here? There is a mic on the sofa.’ Because you saw the attributes of it: silver color, round shape. Now, for this witness, you say it is there but can you see it? Is it perceptual in any way?

Q: That is also witnessed.

A: Is it witnessed? In what way?

Q: I can just see …, it is there.

A: Can you see it there? If you can see it there then you must be able to tell me something about it. Like you say ‘I see this there, I see that there; it is green in color, it is round in shape.’ But That which witnesses all of this, how do you see it?

Now, this discovery should astound you …, because you’re confirming the existence of something which you cannot perceive. And this is unique. There is nothing else like this.

You cannot tell me the color of it, the shapes of it, the size of it, how old it is, what its birthday is. And you say ‘Of course, I am aware’ or ‘Of course, there’s a witness.’

How do you know the existence of one you cannot see?

And what is its relationship to you?

Is it far from you? Or close to you?

Q: I don’t know. It seems to be everything is just appearing here. I don’t know if it’s another ‘I’….

A: Everything is just appearing here. Are you an appearance? Are you also an appearance? Because you said the ‘me’ is also appearing.

Q: Yeah …

A: You’re also an appearance? So, when this appearance disappears, what is left?

Q: Nothing. I don’t know. Nothing. It’s just coming ‘nothing.’

A: Nothing is left. So, this no-thing is You. [Laughs]

Q: I don’t know, Father. You have to tell me what is this …[Laughs]

A: You have to check. I’m just pointing. You say ‘I witness contraction, I witness the space, I witness an idea of ‘me’ or a sense of ‘me’ also. All of these things are witnessed.’ What witnesses them? Is it not you? Who is witnessing them? The one sitting next to you is witnessing them?

Q: I know it is not personal space.

A: It’s not personal. And where is the personal? I’m surprised that we are not every day shocked by this discovery. Because I say ‘Where is the person that we are constantly representing?’ And we don’t seem to find it, and we’re like ‘It’s just not there. It’s not there, but …. It’s not there but …, but …, what about this, what about that?’

It should be so astounding to us that there is no individual entity here (at least that you can find). ‘I’ve been representing this one (seemingly) for so long. Yet when I truly inquire, I do not find this personal existence. I do not find the one who is this.’

Now, you might come and say ‘But I am this body. I’m clear, I’m this body. It is hundred percent clear to me, I am this body.’

Q: No, I don’t feel it.

A: No, suppose. Suppose you said that. Because at least then, for the body, you have some evidence; fingers, legs, arms, everything.

Q: But it’s not seen. Of late, it doesn’t feel …

A: It doesn’t feel like you’re the body. What I was going to say is that if you are completely convinced that you are the body you would never be in Satsang. If you were completely convinced that you are the body, why would you come here? No ice cream here for the body. Then? So, body, not. Then? Are you the one who has relationships? No? No relationships also. Money?

Q: No.

A: Freedom?

Q: No.

A: No? Finished! These are the four things. This is all you trouble yourself with: relationship, money, health of the body and freedom. What is the fifth? [Chuckles] I keep saying, we feel like we have such complicated lives. ‘My life is complicated.’ But what is it? Just these four things, no? If body does not trouble you, money does not trouble you, relationships don’t trouble you and freedom does not trouble you, how are you troubling yourself?

Q: Nothing is troubling.

A: Nothing is troubling you?

Q: No.

A: And yet you’re like ‘But, but I have to get some … ‘

Q: No, the ‘but’ is also vanishing.

A: ‘But’ is vanishing.

Q: It’s seen when the mind comes in and asks questions.

A: Okay, now, if you were to not self-diagnose, then? What is actually here?

Q: Oh, God! That’s so much more space. [Laughs]

A: See, what happens is that in spirituality we get stuck with this checker guy who is constantly giving us freedom marks: ‘Today I’m 70% free. Today I’m 75% free. Today I don’t feel so much. Today this contraction is here, that’s why… ‘

Q: So, when it is happening, okay, it is happening …

A: Whatever is happening is happening.

Q: And you let it happen?

A: Yeah. Will you? [Laughs]

Q: Yeah …, but sometimes it itches a lot, so I mean … [Laughs]

A: What? These four things: relationship, money, body, search for meaning or freedom?

Now, at the center of all of this is just an idea we have about ourself. Who is the owner of that money in the bank account? Who is the owner? Like, if it goes down, a few lakhs here and there, then who is losing or gaining? Body? Body molecules, cells are affected by it?

Q: No.

A: No, then?

Q: Some idea.

A: Some idea of who we are. So, all our relationships, all the idea of doer-ship, of separation, of desire, who’s at the center of all of this? [Silence]

And are we happy to go on presuming the existence of this entity without investigating?

Are we just happy to run on this treadmill forever, just presuming that there is a destination to it?

Or, are we willing to at least take out a little bit of time and see whether it is a valid proposition at all? Are we willing to presume the existence of an ‘I’ and deny the existence of That which is so apparent when we are empty of concepts?

The problem is that there is nowhere you can put what I’m saying. There is no framework in which this will fit. It’s not a piece of knowledge for which you can say ‘Okay, this I have now understood and I can use it in this way.’

Q: I mean everything, it seems to be so false …

A: Everything seems so false, yes.

Q: … and I feel that everything is such a big lie.

A: Everything is a lie. Actually, only our concept of it is a lie.

Q: Yeah, whatever; it has learned …

A: What Is … just Is.

Q: No, whatever it has learned …

A: Learned, yes.

Q: … the other conditioning feels it has put a big hindrance to this Being. So, I feel that I was not even living till now.

A: Okay, now you have discovered it’s a lie. All your conceptualization, mentalization, all is a lie because at the center of all of it is a non-existent entity.

Q: It’s just …, (sharing with you) it just seems like that. The feeling of it is coming.

A: Good. So, now that it feels that way, are we willing to let go of all of it?

Q: Yeah.

A: As I’ve been saying (to misquote John Lennon): Give nothingness a change. [Chuckles] Give your conceptual emptiness a chance and see what happens. I know it can feel a bit uncomfortable, it can seem a bit strange.

Q: Yeah, then the ‘but’ comes in; in that moment.

A: Yes, the ‘But, like this, like this…’ is the peddler of positions, is the peddler of stances, is the peddler of the notions it is offering to you.

What concept from the mind would be inviting to you, unless you considered yourself to be ‘something’?