BOOKS BY ANANTA Welcome to Satsang with Ananta

If all our concepts are about things which are just coming and going eventually, how about if we give Empty-ness or Not-knowing a chance? … without even knowing what you will get as a result?

Suppose it was not a business deal; it was just Truth for Truth’s sake. Just Truth for Truth’s sake; no promise of peace, love, joy, bliss. Nothing offered to you. Just because it was worth it because it is the Truth.

Like in ‘The Matrix.’ In the matrix, you can have all the fun; the wine is there, the good food is there. But what if on offer was just Reality for what it is, naked of any pretense?

What do you really want? Is it that ‘Once I find it, what will I get out of it? What happens to ‘me’ in the matrix? Like will I have a halo? Will I share Satsang?’ [Chuckles]

You find that You are beyond All There Is; much beyond All There Is. That is your discovery.
But are you still attached to this coconut, that all the benefits of that discovery should come to this? [Pointing towards the body] That’s why I ask you in Satsang: Suppose you did a hundred years of sadhana and you found You are All There Is! But you woke out of that body that had started the sadhana, and woke out of that sadhana and the one sitting next to you is the Sage! Would that be a fair deal? You found that You are All There Is, no? So, it shouldn’t matter which body is showing the symptoms of enlightenment. You see?

Somewhere we are attached to what should happen for ‘this one.’ We say we find the boundless ocean. Ashtavakra said [paraphrasing] ‘I am the boundless ocean in which the arcs of the universes, they come and go.’ [Then we wonder]: ‘So, once I’ve found that, what’s in it for me?’ [Laughing] This is our question. ‘Once I find I am that boundless universe, I’m that boundless ocean in which the arcs of the universes come and go (as arcs, you see) …, I am that boundless …, so what does it mean for the wave that I consider myself to be?’

Somewhere our attachment to one particular body/mind instrument seems to get a hold of us in this way. It could be because all our thoughts are about this, because the centrality of our visual perspective seems to be that. The design of this leela or play seems to be this way. And everything you can know through this device [pointing to the head] …, like will you go to Siri or Alexa and say ‘Siri, who am I in reality? What is my Unchanging Truth?’ You’ll not do that. You would say ‘What a stupid thing to do!’ Like ‘Alexa, what is my Unchanging Reality?’ …, would you do that? No. Why?

This mind is just like that; a store house of concepts. How can you expect it to reveal your true identity?

So, you cannot contain the ocean in this tiny cup. [Silence] And as you let go of this (let your mind float away and come back as often as it likes and float away again) in this simplicity Your complete Truth is absolutely apparent to You. But it is not apparent to your mind. So, if you’re waiting for mind to give a certificate, then it can seem to go on and on.

For how many does it still seem like we are having a three-way conversation? Like there’s you sitting in the middle, there’s one voice coming from here [Ananta’s voice] and there’s another voice which is coming from the mind which is saying ‘Yes, yes, no, no; yeah, I saw that.’ And you, poor thing, are stuck in a tennis match. [moving his head from side to side]

Mostly that voice will be saying ‘What is he saying? How can I get it?’

I’m saying: There is nothing to get. You Are It.

The voice says ‘But how can I get it, that I Am It?’

[Chuckles] This three-way relationship is going to be painful because both sides are unrelenting. [Laughter in the room] You mostly get frustrated with me; why? Because I’m unrelenting. And the mind is also completely unrelenting. It’s saying ‘You are this person, you are this body/mind, you have responsibilities, and you have a life …’

I’m saying: You are way greater! All of this can happen through the Supreme Intelligence which runs all of this. All of this is happening but You are beyond all phenomena, beyond all of this.

But because both players seem so unrelenting, if you have investments on both sides, it can seem like a painful thing; like trying to board an airplane with one foot on the ground.

Do you have some conceptual knowledge about the non-phenomenal? I can say it slowly. Do you have some conceptual knowledge about something which is not phenomenal?

All knowledge is about things which are in time and space. Even when we say ‘The truth is unchanging’ we are still making temporal boundaries. We are still defining it in terms of time. So, if all our conceptual knowledge is about that which changes, which comes and goes, it’s about phenomena, we are looking for that unchanging Reality which is beyond birth and death, then doesn’t it make sense when the Sages say ‘Don’t rely on this conceptual knowledge’? And sometimes the Sage will give you a reassurance and say: There is a deeper knowing. Trust that.’

When we are empty of notions, is there a difference between the sound of the bird and the sound of the ambulance? Is one good and the other bad? Without our labels, what remains? Is something up and something down? Something manifest and something else unmanifest?

Is there Brahman and Ishwara? Is there Atma and Jeevatma? Is there absolute Awareness, Consciousness; body, mind, ego? All of this is the dance of notions, of concepts. But Isness (if you don’t make a concept out of it also) this Isness is independent of all labels, all time, all space. The idea of limitation is not natural to you. It is a learned knowledge and the unlearning is happening now. You will not be able to solve this puzzle, you cannot intellectualize your way out of it; you cannot compute your way to the Self. It is a much more primal discovery; a recognition which is not perceptual …, but completely apparent. [Silence]

We have tried and tried and tried for maybe thousands of lifetimes to know our way out of this maze, labyrinth, chakra-view, to know our way so that one day we will come to the ultimate knowledge of the Self. But the Sages have been reminding us that this Knowledge (capital ‘K’) cannot be attained through this instrument [Points to the head] which is very limited; the mind. That’s why Ashtavakra said: ‘The mind is complex. Let it go.’

What are the positions you can have? If I say something to you, you can only either agree or disagree. If you try to remain neutral about it, you will say ‘It was nothing, what he said.’ This is the thing. Just hear what I am saying. If I say something to you, you will put it in the box of your agreement or disagreement. And if you put it in the 3^rd box, which is neutral, then you will say ‘Okay, what he said was nothing.’ Now, to this nothing, I am pointing. [Chuckles] Don’t ignore that. What is in between your agreement and disagreement? What are you Now? If I say to you ‘What I am saying is neither true nor false’ you have no mental compartment to put it in. But something comes to a standstill.

Q: We can say there is a ‘maybe’ between yes and no?

A: Yeah, so giving assent to it. No. Maybe true or maybe false. So, these two main positions of true and false (around which it can seem like there is spectrum but) it’s just the duality of true and false. So, what to do with that which is neither true nor false? Beyond accent or decent, beyond agreement or disagreement, beyond these two poles, we are empty of concepts.

Q: I just had the wish that you could speak and I’m trying to find some words. It is about a seeming contradiction. Being in this world and this body, and obviously having a lot of experiences. And on the other side, from this Seeing, nothing really matters. So, how it is here is I’m just so not interested in anything. [Smiles] And yet these things are coming up. It is not really contradiction but it’s a contradiction somehow. Experience is a contradiction. In a way, I doubt. But I cannot say anything more about it. It is just … I think you know what I mean. [Chuckles] And if you could say something then that would be great. [Chuckles] Thank you. [Smiles]

A: Yes. You said rightly that it is like a seeming contradiction and the minute you say ‘seeming’ then you just realize that it seems like one. It is like …, what is a good metaphor? It is like you’re wearing these speckles. Now, suppose that you got completely identified with these spectacles. So, they are the lenses; it seems like you see this world through this lens. So, these spectacles. And you can feel like ‘But it’s such a contradiction. I am in this world, as these speckles, and I am also here as this body.’

So, what is happening in Satsang is that you are recognizing that you are not in this world, as if you are this body, but actually, in a way, the world itself is your body. The world is your manifest aspect. And the only seeming contradiction then is your un-manifest and your manifest … and trying to use the mind to reconcile them. [Smiles] Of course, the central part every time this world appears, it ‘seems to be’ although we cannot truly confirm this. It seems to be the persistent appearance of this one body, which seems to have this central perspective.

So, my advice with this would be to not to worry about it at all; to not try de-construct it, to not try understanding anything about it. Then you will see that these distinctions will start fading on their own. Like ‘This is the body.’ You will not be able to find so clearly that this is my body and this is another body. What is the term the body used for?

I was saying yesterday or day before like that ‘What we call be body actually is more cells than the stars in the Milky Way.’ [Smiles] So when we say ‘I relate to myself as the body’ are we talking about ourselves relating to ourself as trillions of cells? Nobody relates to themselves as trillions of anything because the mind cannot fathom trillion. It just has a label. It can never fathom a trillion. It can fathom ten, twenty, hundred, may be a thousand but after thousands, it loses the ability to process. It cannot deal with bigger numbers than that. So, nobody is looking at themselves as these trillions of these cells. They just have an idea with themselves as whatever sensations are available at the moment, that we are this sensation. ‘This is the body and this sensation is what I am’ …, whatever set of few sets of sensations which are available in that moment? Because they seem sensorially intimate so we say ‘This is what I am.’ But actually, this is very, very unbelievable almost, in a sense, because it is clear to you in this moment that these sensations are just happening within You. And there is a greater reorganization at all times that ‘I am that space in which these sensations are appearing.’ Whether they are visual, whether they are seemingly internal; it doesn’t really matter.

It is only that our mental knowledge is so centered around this centrality of body that it seems like ‘This is what I am here as.’ But no body actually has this experience also, that they here as this.

Is it clear to everyone that these sensations are within you? [Smiles]

So, what are we really identified with? Neither are we identified with what science is telling us that there are trillions of cells here because we cannot even fathom these trillions of cells, nor are we identified with the sensations which are just appearing. It is just that the mind is offering a label constantly saying that ‘Okay, this is the body. This is what you are. And these experiences, these sensations, have to be controlled in some sense.’ And we say ‘That’s why I’m identified with this.’

But as we lose this mind, as we lose this knowledge, then we don’t have to worry about this at all. We do not have to worry about this at all. The truth is SO obvious. The truth of what You Are will become so obvious as these clouds of knowledge will start to fade away that these doubts will just seem like the silliest, the craziest doubts. They will seem so far out, which they are. But it is just that we got used to identify with them. We got used to identifying as if we are this label called the body, although we are not even clear as to what it represents.

We might say that ‘Oh, it represents this and this.’ But what is this? We don’t know. [Smiles] If we break it down to any level …, like, I can say ‘trillions of cells.’ You say ‘No, that is not what I am identified with.’ If I say ‘It is just an object made out of food, just an object made out of food and water.’ You will say ‘No, no, I can’t be food and water.’ Then we can’t identify with any sort of real way of looking. [Smiles] And when I say ‘real’ I’m saying in a phenomenal way of looking. It is just that we got attached to one idea of a ‘me’ central to which seems to be the notion of body; when actually, we’re not so attached to this bucket of food and water, this bucket of flesh and blood. [Smiles] We cannot be.

So, it’s good; even this doubt you exposed it. And it’s very natural for us to have it, in a sense. But you will find that in these explorations, in this inquiry, in the invitation, in the question ‘Who am I?’ (whatever tools we have) that these kinds of doubts will not have much power over us. But don’t pick up any concept that you have to balance something. Do not pick any concept that you have to balance life as the body and you have to balance your spiritual life as All There Is. [Smiles] These kinds of things, if you try to balance them, it becomes impossible. Nobody can balance. I’m just saying for everyone that nobody can actually balance being All There Is with being one tiny, miniscule object. [Smiles]

Q: What came up when you were speaking about this just this now is that it is very subtle belief system. You have no words for the beliefs systems but you see that they are belief systems. And then it is just this belief, this habit; really just the habit. This is happening. Something like this. And to trying to balance is no, no …, it is too painful. [Smiles] Just painful. [Chuckles] Thank you.

A: Yes, I have said that trying to balance like this is like trying to board an airplane with one foot in the ground. It is as painful as that. [Smiles] But you are noticing; it is very good that you’re noticing certain belief systems (which you cannot even find the words for).

Now, you will start to notice soon that even time and space are just belief systems; that even time and space is just belief systems. And ultimately, you will notice that even ‘I am’ is just a belief system. [Smiles] Even this holiest sense, this Presence ‘I Am’ ultimately relies on this belief system. So, it gets subtler and subtler, and you will notice how much we had ideas about things, how many ideas we had about this existence and what exists. But this Existence Itself ultimately is a belief system within the Absolute.

Q: You said it is a cloud of knowledge. That’s all it is?

A: Yes, it is a cloud of notions, it is a cloud of concepts.

Q: Once erased, it’s erased.

A: [Laughter] Once erased, then there is no time itself left. You see? Once erased …, like even our idea of temporal or spatial world relies on our notions of the world in that way. In Satsang, we might feel like ‘Okay, our notions of grievances, of regret, of pride, of arrogance, of ownership, of attachment; all of these are notions are going to go …, and then I’ll be left with a very normal life to lead’ or something like that. We’ve heard ‘chopping wood, fetching water.’ But as you really take on this exploration, you will see that all of these will go; and then the subtler ones will go and then the subtler ones, then the subtler ones …, till we are left with no idea about anything but a very, very true Knowingness about everything. Like no distinction about anything, but just like a ‘not two-ness’ with everything. And ‘time’ will have a very different quality than we think it does right now. Like right now, we might be thinking ‘So, if this happens, then what happens as a result of that?’ or something like that. But all of these things of time, of cause and effect …, you’ll have a very different perspective about this.

Q: So, where is this stored, Father? Where is this stored?

A: It is within You, Your own Being, Your own Consciousness.

Q: Not in the body though, right?

A: The body is nothing but …

Q: Not in the memory?

A: All of these are just labels for different aspects of Consciousness. We can say energetic aspects of Consciousness, but we can just say Consciousness. Unless You Are, is there a memory?

Q: I don’t know. [Chuckles]

A: You don’t have to know actually, because I am pointing you to something deeper. You don’t have to take on these minor explorations (except if they are fun for you). But then you have to just hear what I am saying, which is that all of this (body, memory, emotional level of existence, intellectual level of existence, bodily level of existence, worldly level of existence, all of these) are just various aspects of Your own Being. Now, you come to a point where you don’t have to make any distinction. You don’t have to deal with (like Guruji would say) branch after branch; like ‘Is this branch, is it good to cut?’ Or ‘What is helpful for the tree?’ Like that. You are just going straight for the root. You’re going straight for the root. So, as we go straight for the root, you will wonder as to why humanity, in a sense, even had to make all these labels. Did they bring more clarity or did they bring further confusion actually?

Like even this label between body and mind is just looking at some energy construct which operates this way (we call that body) and some energy construct that operates that way (we call that mind) then look at some another energy construct which operates seemingly in another way (we call that world). And you’ll look and you’ll wonder and say ‘Wow, did these actually bring any sort of peace or clarity? Or did these distinctions actually only make platforms for misery?

Q: More confusion.

A: More confusion. Once you start to make these distinctions, and we identify with them (like ‘I am this body/mind). Then we also have this fantastic notion that this one [body/mind] should get peace. But no one, as that one, has ever gotten peace. [Chuckles] So, it is only when the distinctions are removed that we experience that true peace.

Q: Father, the main practice, from the person level, whatever, is to just observe, without engaging or pushing whatever is appearing. And it is easy when the eyes are closed. For when the eyes are open, I need more help, Father.

A: Yes. I gave someone a contemplation to help with this a little bit. It is more of an experiment than a contemplation. What you could do is find a room in your house which when you shut off the lights (maybe at night time) there is no light. When it’s very dark, then keep your eyes open.

Then try with keeping your eyes open and seeing what changes. You’ll see that nothing changes, in that way. So, just experiment with this. Then this feeling of distinction between closed eyes and open eyes might start to fade away a bit.

Q: Yes, that should be easy; that’s the next step, Father.

A: [Laughter] You come and report what that was, what you found. Because we can have an idea that we think we know what will happen. See if it is comfortable, if it’s natural. See if you can stay for 10-15 minutes with eyes open in a completely dark room.

Q: Yes, that should be okay.

A: You’ll see that it’s not that which it has been made to be about; the opening or closing of this instrument. It’s just about the appearances or non-appearances on the screen. That is why I’m saying that once you experiment, then this will resonate more.

Q: Will do. Thank you, Father.

As many of you are allowing yourself to remain in the unborn mind, I’ve gotten a few reports (at least three or four last week) that ‘I’m feeling very disoriented.’ And this is very natural, actually. I won’t call it a dis-orientation but a re-orientation …, where you’re going from the idea that you are an object limited by time and space; now, many of you are finding that time and space is not as solid as we considered it to be. It is not so substantial as you thought.

This can sound a bit strange because even until this moment now many of you might think that ‘I’m here in Satsang personally.’ You might feel that ‘I’m going to get something as an individual entity.’ But you’ve invited a much greater force into your life …, that which takes you beyond all your own notional boundaries and limitations, beyond your own ideas of what is and what is not.

So, don’t be surprised and also don’t give it too much value. Don’t be surprised and also don’t give too much value to anything which might seem out of the ordinary because it is truly nothing for You in Your Reality.

Many times, it is also the wonderful experiences which can make it seem that ‘It is actually about this.’ If, for example, you have the experience that time and space is no longer a limitation for you, enjoy it as long as it lasts but don’t make that a ‘thing.’ It is not even about that …, as we remain in this emptiness.

Some of you are feeling ‘But we are having no experiences like this; no mystical, no esoteric, no nothing.’ [Chuckles] But that is also fine. In fact, that might be better. (Actually, nothing is better or worse.) It is also good, in a way, that nothing is coming to distract you, to make you attracted to these kinds of experiences. Because the truth of what I am pointing to is un-miss-able. No matter what the content of your experience is, it is beyond all experiences.

Allow yourself to remain in this ‘unborn.’

[Silence]

And soon you will be astounded at your own ideas of limitations. What can be and what cannot be, what should be and what shouldn’t be; these will hold no power.

How do we remain in this unborn?

Realize, recognize, that our conceptual knowing, to know even one thing conceptually, is like putting dust in your own eyes.

When you know nothing, when you are conceptually empty, what is it that you actually know?

[Silence]

So, this kind of inquiry is like a very potent looking, a very potent emptying. In fact, the looking and the emptying are not-two here. It’s a very potent meditation on the unborn.

I’m also aware that for some of you, you’re just feeling like ‘What is this? It makes no sense.’ [Chuckles] ‘This makes no sense. What is he saying?’ And for those of you who are right now feeling like ‘But this kind of question makes no sense!’ …, that is fine. It is not meant to make sense to your mind. [Repeats] It is not meant to make sense to your mind.

Even the statement ‘To know even one thing is to know too much’ …, there is nothing that the mind can do with this because it will make an attempt to know this but even that knowing conceptually is too much. This can be joyous for some and this can be frustrating for some; and either is fine.

When you ask yourself: ‘What do I know when I know nothing?’ …, this beautiful inquiry into a naked looking, an open exploration empty of conceptual baggage, is invited.

But you don’t need to know any of this actually. [Silence] This inquiry into the unborn will burn even your spiritual notions about yourself, your ideas about what you think Satsang is for. The very sticky idea that ‘you are the cat looking now for your ultimate bowl of milk which is nirvana or enlightenment, freedom’ will get driven away from its root.

Here, the ‘not-two’-ness of Advaita and ‘the unborn mind’ of the Zen Masters will reveal itself on its own. In fact, you will realize that it has always been apparent in Reality …, but only seemed to get clouded by the mind, by your thoughts.

Also, some of you will hate this; will hate this at times. Even those who seem to love it at the moment may hate it soon. And vice versa; some of you might hate it now and love it soon. But it’s fine.

My advice is to stay with this. I know many of you want to run. When you realize that there is nothing for ‘me’ here, you want to run. And that is fine, too. But one day, sometime, we will have to have this conversation in whatever form we have it; it is unavoidable. One day you will have to see through these clouds of your notions, your concepts, your belief systems. And the feeling here is to come to this very naked spirituality which is empty of all of these pretenses.

Now, the thing is that anything as potent as this, for anything as potent as this, the mind will have one trump card; it will try to make this about you, about ‘me.’ Just notice this. Because what is happening is not about the ‘me’ at all. But you still might buy some idea about ‘So, what’s happening to me now? How much progress am I making?’

Just notice it and in your noticing it, you will discard it.

Now, this emptiness which is naturally here …, know that whatever tricks, tools or weapons the mind has at its disposal, it will try and use to counter it. Whatever notions, ideas, concepts it can use, it will say ‘But, but, but, this has to be true.’ Like ‘This has to be true!’ And what happens is also I have noticed (and I have said this over the years and you must also have heard this many times): know that you are starting to get in trouble when you start to resist the inquiry. Know that when you say ‘Anything but inquiry’ know that something has got you. [Makes the gesture of getting caught] Something has got you. Why? Because I have noticed with so many sangha members over the years (hundreds) it’s just like ‘Just tell me anything to do, ask me anything but don’t ask me: who am I?’ like ‘Don’t let me to check: who am I?’

Why is that? It cannot be that the spaciousness and this resistance can be there at the same time. It is just that we have asked over the years ‘Who am I?’ and we feel that we never came to a satisfactory conclusion so it has become a source of frustration for us. So, it just feels like ‘I know what Father is going to say; he is just going to say: Who? But who? But who? Don’t ask me that.’ What you are basically saying is ‘Go with my presumption about who I am. Don’t ask me to check whether that is real or not.’ But fundamentally, that is asking for trouble. In fact, that is the only trouble in life: to misunderstand yourself to be something that you are not; to come to a false conclusion about what you are. Because once you come to a conclusion about what you are …

Suppose we just presume that you are Krishna (this Krishna; body/mind Krishna) [referring to the man named Krishna from the sangha sitting in satsang hall] then all kinds of trouble can come. And the biggest trouble is coming anyway: death. Once you presume this, then death is there, then fear is there, attachments are there, then so much struggle is there. Then why do we have to presume this?

That is what’s being looked at Satsang every day: Is this presumption a valid presumption? And are we coming to Satsang as ‘cats looking for the final bowl of milk for the cat’? Or are we willing to let go of this cat identity? Because if we keep saying ‘The cat wants this, the cat had this, cat did this, this happened to the cat’ then it is still all about the cat. And I can humor it for a bit, but I cannot humor it forever. Because I don’t want to see you struggle forever; I don’t want to see you struggle with this ‘me, me, me’ forever.

So, either position, that ‘the cat is getting it or not getting it, is getting somewhere or not getting anywhere’ is flawed because we feel that we are a somebody sitting here as an entity.

What happens then? Our devotion then gets converted into attack, our inquiry then becomes an aversion. And yet, the feeling that ‘I am right’ is constant. So, this kind of (we call it the mind attack) mind attack where it’s saying ‘It’s this, it’s that; but look, look, look…’ is the voice of that suspicious friend [Makes a gesture of suspicion] ‘See, like that, like that!’ [Makes gesture of buying the suspicion] ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ [Chuckles]

You guys were not here the other day. We were having a short Sangha meeting where we were saying (I was just laughing and saying) that so many us are so …, in Hindi we have this phrase ‘Kan Ka Kaccha’ [which means] we just hear something (except, of course, whatever we hear in Satsang gets discarded quickly) [Laughs] everything else that we hear is so quickly taken to be some version of the truth. Everything is like ‘Yeah, yeah’ especially with this mind which seems to quickly say ‘I am your best friend, I am helping you. I am getting used to this and even your Master is against you actually. Even your Master is not realizing what he is doing; he is against you.’

More and more, what I am seeing also is that every time I feel like ‘Okay, I should help my children with this and that’ (in the worldly way, in some personal sense) …, that whole concept of ‘I will give them what they want so that one day they can want what I want to give them.’ [Chuckles] It just doesn’t work. At least here it doesn’t work, I have seen. Here, it just becomes then about ‘Okay, then this, and then what about this? Then what about that?’ I am like ‘Come on. What are we really talking about? What are we here for? What is really going on?  What is Satsang?’

We all say we are in Sat-sang (the company of the Truth) but somewhere in all of that game, it also gets lost. So, I’m also learning not to maybe participate so much in this kind of thing. Something was clear here from the beginning about this, that I don’t want to be like a wish fulfilling genie. [Laughs] But as I go along, it’s becoming more and more clear that if it starts to feel ‘We can come to Satsang and our wishes will get fulfilled’ then it is not truly in service to what is being offered. It must not be about that.

It must be Truth for Truth’s sake. And all that I have said today is about this: Truth for Truth’s sake; not with a particular purpose, not for a particular idea.

Then what happens is that just as you confuse yourself to be a body/mind. You also confuse the Master to be this body/mind ‘Ananta.’ [Chuckles] It can become about this body/mind, and your body/mind; this kind of thing. But it is really not about that.

Someone from the sangha wrote to me the other day. She said ‘Father I came to your Satsang…’ (and she has been coming for a long time) she said ‘I have come to Bangalore also a couple of times, but when I came, I came with the mind, entered Satsang with the mind and I left with the mind.’ And I realized in this report that this is why we struggle in Satsang. What does this mean? We will look into that a little bit. She said ‘I came, and I felt like I came to the satsang, but I just came for a mental purpose. I wanted to achieve a particular objective and that’s why I came. I had the outcome already planned out.’ So, many of us, we come to Satsang with the mind or as if we are the mind, or as if we are the person. Now, what does it actually mean? And this is not just so that you can feel guilty about yourself, not so that you have something to do to fix it because there is nothing you can do, except to notice.

So, what are the different versions of this mind? The first version is ‘the judge.’ The judge is also ‘the confirmer.’ It is like everything that you already believe, if you are hearing that, then it is going ‘Yeah, yeah, yes, yes, this is good. Satsang is very good today, Father.’ [Chuckles] This is the confirmer mind or the judging mind which is saying this. And this is very difficult to change because this just comes for confirmation. It just comes for confirmation. You could have seen a previous Satsang, you could have read a transcript, you could have read a book. You could have heard something that Guruji or some other Sage has said. And you feel like you come to Satsang to confirm what you understood (you think) just to get confirmation for that.

So, this is a version of the mind. And somewhere correlated with this one is ‘the collector’ saying ‘Okay, Father says come to satsang open, so I am going to be open …, but I am going to openly collect everything that he is saying.’ [Chuckles] Like ‘Don’t judge, don’t interpret, but come as a collector.’ [Choose] this one: ‘This notion-less existence.’ It just keeps collecting, feeling like a bag of collections, one day, will be so full that we will be free. But freedom is not this fullness. Freedom is a conceptual emptiness [emptiness of concepts] which recognizes a truer fullness.

So, all these variations; collector, judge, confirmer. [Chuckles] There can be many variants of the mind. Sometimes ‘the confronter’ wants to come, like ‘I am just going to confront, I am just going to argue’ or something like that. But this is not what Satsang is for. Because the voice that is speaking in Satsang, the speaker in satsang, is not attached to the words and that’s why he is quite comfortable if you say ‘Not like this, like that; not like this, like that.’ It is okay because these words are nothing but pointers which help you to remove the other conceptual baggage. So, these words are like the garbage collectors. These words are like the room-freshener in a way. But they themselves are not the Truth. No words are actually the Truth.

So, you are left in this sort of silly space where you say ‘What am I supposed to do then?  How am I supposed to come to Satsang?’ Well, don’t know. [Silence] Because any conclusion that I can give you will be false. But if you allow yourself to remain inconclusive …, (I don’t want to say what unfolds).

So, even our coming to Satsang is full of so much ego at times, is full of so many positions. This checker guy, this confirmer, this judge; all of these variants we think we are. But we are none of these. The Master goes hoarse saying ‘Let go, let go, let go.’ [Chuckles] Like I was saying the other day, that the Master is saying ‘Empty your cup, empty your cup, empty your cup’ and you are filling your cup with [the idea] ‘Empty your cup, empty your cup, empty your cup.’ [Chuckles] That is literally what is happening. The words which are meant to empty your cup then end up filling your cup even more. And instead of getting lighter, you are getting heavier. Your ego is becoming more full of concepts. Many times, it can happen.

So, everything that is heard in Satsang must be used to check where it is pointing to and to uproot these strong conditions, these egoistic tendencies that we have. Because if Satsang itself is becoming a way for you to get attached, for you to fear more, then forget it. Better to forget it.

And what are we really attached to? We might say that ‘I am attached to objects in the world.’ How are you attached to those? And you say ‘I am really attached, help me, Master.’ I say ‘How are you attached?’ Who can answer this? [Looks around the room] There is a computer over here. Suppose I say ‘I am really attached to this computer, it is really nice. I am really attached.’ But what is actually attached? [Chuckles]

What is attached? What are the prerequisites for attachment? You need to have a notion of ‘me’ and you need to have a notion of ‘mine.’ Even the perceiving of the object in itself cannot lead to attachment. We need to have a sense that there is a ‘me’ to whom this belongs; which is ‘mine.’ But is any of this true?

What really belongs to you?

In India we have this popular version of Geeta Saar (The Essence of the Geeta) which says [in Hindi] ‘Tu kya leke ayaa thaa, tu cya leke jayega?’ which means ‘What did you come with, what will you go with? What is the point of all of this attachment?’

But we think that we are not even attached. Like I am not attached to holding this computer [Gestures holding the computer] …, like that. It is more like ‘It’s mine.’ And if the label changes from ‘mine’ to ‘yours’ then something feels hurt. What happens in relationships? There’s an object over there, which you claimed was mine, and that object says ‘I am not yours, I am somebody else’s.’ … Gone. Six months can go by sometimes with just one label changing, from ‘mine’ to ‘no longer mine.’

Q1: Father, I realized on retreat that the ego was afraid and keeping me from coming to you. After admitting this, a subtle shift happened. And it’s like Guruji [Sri Mooji] has said ‘Focus on the road, not the wipers.’ This life has been completely lived through the mind.

A: But it’s good that we notice this. It’s good that we notice this and now, as we notice this, we must not get too much into the post-mortem of it, like ‘What happened, why did it happen, how worthy or unworthy or guilty am I?’ It’s just to notice this and that ‘The mind has lost its hold over me.’ As we notice that this has been the mind, in that noticing the mind loses its hold.

So, if you’ve discovered that you’ve been eating in the kitchen of the mind, now don’t pick up its next plate which is going to offer up guilt and judgments about yourself.

Q2: Father, I’ve always been nagged by these questions: if this is a dream; am I in your dream or are you in mine?

A: [Chuckling] So, let’s look at the dream. Suppose you had a dream. In that dream, there was one A and there was a B. So, is A in B’s dream or B in A’s dream? That will answer your question.

I can repeat a little slowly. This is a common question; over the years I’ve heard it a few times. You will say ‘Is this my dream and you are in it? Or is this your dream and I’m in it?’

But if this is a dream and there are two charters in the dream (character A and character B) …, is character A dreaming about character B? Or is B dreaming about character A?

Q2: ‘Both A and B are in my dream.’

A: Exactly. Now this one that is having the dream, which character is it? Is it a character at all?

So, this one, that is not a character, that is not an entity, that is beyond Being and Non-Being, is You.

Don’t take my word for it, of course.

That is why you cannot find Your Self in time and space. You can look for the Self everywhere, in the holiest of places, but you will not find YourSelf there.

Where can you find YourSelf? If you cannot find Your Self in time and space. if you cannot find YourSelf on this side of the eyes, [Pointing outwards] where can you find YourSelf?

For the mind, this is a nonsense question. But I’m inviting you to look at it. I’m proposing this question to you: You cannot find it on the right, you cannot find it on the left, you cannot find it above you, you cannot find it below you, you cannot find it in front of you, you cannot find it behind you. Now where will you find YourSelf? You cannot find YourSelf inside you or outside you; what you think you are. Then where will you look?

Q3: You stop looking.

A: You stop looking. Then what happens?

Q3: Then you just are.

A: What happened to Your Self?

Q4: How do I turn in the direction where the looking comes from?

There is no how. [Chuckling] Just ask yourself:

Where does the looking come from?

So, whether you inquire in this way

Whether you ask yourself ‘Who am I?’

Whether you surrender

(‘Guru Kripa Kevalam – My Masters Grace is All There Is’)

Whether you pick up my question to you which is:

‘To know one thing is to know too much.

What do you know when you know nothing?’

(a question like this) …

Any of these tools are available to you.

What do they help you with?

They help you not to rely on this conceptual knowledge.

And as I tell you this, when you are empty of this, the complete, complete Truth is apparent to You, Right Now. Apparent to You …, but it has nothing for the mind. The mind cannot proclaim it or claim it, it cannot not deny it.

No position about it is actually true.

Let go of this mind.

And let go does not mean that it should never come.

Let go only means it can come and go.

When we are open to the pointers in Satsang, they have a very destructive effect on our concepts. They have a destructive impact on our concepts when we are truly open in Satsang. When we are in Satsang because we think we know something and we want confirmation; when we are in Satsang because we want to get at something, then there is already an end in the mind. When you think you are right about something, then either Satsang can become a struggle or it can also aid your spiritually ego. And it has happened umpteen times where somebody who has been in Satsang for very long can then get this idea. That’s why sometimes I get these reports saying that ‘Father, it’s like this, not like this’ and ‘But not like that; it is like that.’ [Smiles] This kind of thing. But I am saying ‘It is neither this nor that.’ But no, we feel like we have now become the custodian of some Brahmagyana [Supreme Knowledge] or something.

So, can we really look at this? Because it is said (and Guruji [Sri Mooji] also talks about it) that there are many signs in India you see like this: ‘Leave your shoes and ego at the door.’ [Smiles] In fact, I don’t mind actually; it is better if you get your shoes in. But this ego thing, you see, it just wants confirmation, affirmation. It wants to know that it knows something. That is so much struggle. That day Gopala and I were having a beautiful conversation where I was just saying ‘Just leave it.’ He is like ‘Oh, is it like that, is it like that?’ [And I say]: ‘No, no, leave it. Just leave that also.’ [He said]: ‘But then it is so easy.’ [I say]: ‘Then leave that also.’ [Smiles]

Why do we need to come to a conclusion?

What is this sense of knowing all about?

Isn’t it fake?

Isn’t it a complete fraud?

What is that we have actually ever known, truly? [Smiles]

With this instrument [hands pointing towards head], what is it that we ever actually truly known?

Nothing.

We do not even know what that instrument is.

We do not know what this body is.

This body has more cells than the stars in the Milky Way, supposedly. [Smiles]

But we don’t even know what keeps it together.

How do you call it ‘me’? It’s a universe; at least a galaxy. [Smiles]

So, this naked, raw admittance that ‘we do not know anything’ …, including that. That is important because these days I have seen that this has become something to something of a crutch: ‘I just do not know anything. I don’t know anything. Oh, you seem to be knowing a lot, I know nothing.’ You see, like that. I’m saying that can become a crutch.

Without one ounce of this or that, without any end of the opposites, this is how the dropping of the mind (and in fact, dropping of the body-mind) happens. The body can still continue to appear but this idea that ‘it is me’ …, the mind can still continue to appear and disappear but that idea that ‘it is me’ will seem alien to you. Because it is actually ludicrous.

All that is needed, all that is being invited, is a looking, a checking, a noticing. Not that ‘Ah, I have been coming to Satsang as if I am the mind; I am so bad, I am so unworthy, I am so guilty, I am not going to get free.’ This is not the mind play we are inviting now; that is just another mind play.

Come empty of your positions.

[Silence]

Come empty of your positions.

Become empty of your positions.

And you will realize that this is Your original truth anyway.

Nothing ever has defined You.

No conclusion about You has been valid.

And all of this is You. [Smiles]

All of this is You.

[Silence]

Standing where you are Right Now, everything is fine.

[Silence]

The mind is offering you the tickets to Disneyland …, actually, it’s misery land. [Smiles] You are like ‘Ah, this is will be so much fun, if I had this, if I did that.’ Actually, it is not Disneyland, it is misery land. [Smiles] Most of us have experienced this, isn’t it? You buy these tickets from mind and you make hell out of this heaven.

What do you know when you know nothing?

[Reading from chat]: “It’s perfect. Brings clarity though it gets a bit wobbly and appears as though I would need to constantly come back to the question so that I don’t fall hopelessly back into the mind’s play. Is this a constant effort of inquiry?”

It can feel a bit like that, especially initially this kind of question is so repulsive to the mind. It just feels like, either it will say ‘You got it. You got it. Stop it’ or ‘You’re hopeless at it. You’ll never get it. Stop it.’ You see? Any which way, stop it. But I’ve said also earlier that all the support that is needed is provided in the first sentence. And if you don’t understand this, it’s fine.

Trust me. [Chuckles] I know what I am talking about, which is that to know one thing, to know even one thing is to know too much. This is the infrastructure, the foundation, for the inquiry:

To know even one thing is to know too much.

What do you know when you know nothing?

It’s very, very, very simple; very straightforward …, except to the mind. But I’m also aware that this kind of tool, this kind of inquiry, the mind will resist with all its might because to the mind it will seem completely meaningless, pointless. ‘What are you getting because of it?’ It will have all these kinds of objections. That’s why it needs a certain level of openness, integrity, to really check. It is like saying that:

To put one drop is to fill my cup.

What does the empty cup look like?

To know one thing is to know too much.

What do I know when I know nothing?

[Silence]

Sometimes your minds are rebelling against this inquiry by saying ‘But this is questioning the fundamental Knowingness which itself is the substratum’ and all of these things. But it is not that, if you really look. Don’t accept this kind of doubt from the mind. Be true to YourSelf.

What do you really know when you know nothing?

[Reading from chat]: “Beloved Father, when I have the darshan of that, I discover that (as I am) has never tasted life.”

[Laughs] You know this? It is to know too much. If that has never tasted life then who else is here? This is the thing, every time we take a position, it’s garbage. It’s just nonsense. Give no credence to this kind of things. If you take them seriously, you will just be lost. This is just your mind’s attempt to play God. This is what it does. I’m pointing you to an emptiness. The mind will make these profound-sounding claims but they have nothing to do with Your Reality. They might even sound like the words of Satsang to you but they have nothing to do with Your Reality.

If some words do arise from true emptiness, then you could be saying ‘Blah, blah, blah’ [making gibberish sounds] and I’ll be at your feet.

Empty your cup.

Empty your cup.

Empty your cup.

[Silence]

Even our fanciest proclamations from the mind are just a ticket to misery-land.

[Reading from chat]: “Thank you, Father. To know not even one thing, even for a split second, is amazing.”

[Laughs]  You let me make that report. You don’t know even this. [Chuckles] Because I’m completely aware of the tricks of the mind. It can start with subtle praise. In the beginning it will say ‘Yes, this is very good, this is really helping me, this is what I must do now.’ It will make all these conclusions and then when it switches ‘This is getting boring. This I can’t do now. This is pointless.’

Then because you had the credibility of the praise, then when the complaints come, then we start buying those also. So, you remain empty of even this. I know this trickster all too well. [Silence] Let the Master make that claim on your behalf. You remain as empty as possible.

Just come to this beautiful dropping; dropping of the mind, dropping of the imagination of the universe itself. Just come to the end of your notions. All distinctions, all duality, will vanish.

When I say ‘Let go of the mind’ then what is your response?

Q: It is seen that now the mind is saying many things but here it doesn’t matter.

A: You say it is seen that now the mind is saying many things but here [from the perspective of the Self] it doesn’t matter. Good!

Q: It is too much of a statement to say ‘that the mind itself is saying.’

A: Let it come and go.

Q: I’m scared of losing my mind.

A: I’m scared of losing my mind, you say. Losing my mind? All the happiest ones you see are the ones who have lost their mind. That itself should be reassuring.

Q: Because so much of the credit is taken by the mind.

A: Okay, tell me what credit we can actually give to the mind? Is it beating your heart? Is it doing the breathing for you?

Q: No, but there are times when I feel that when I’m happy, my mind is like ‘Oh yeah, it’s a good day’ and the mind is also more relaxed. And when there are…

A: So, it is that ‘kidnapper’ (the mind). [Chuckles] ‘Today is a good day because my tormentor is not torturing.’

Q: Probably it is quieter on some days.

A: So, what if we get rid of this tormentor?

Q: Then it suddenly comes and says ‘Hey, how can you…?’

A: It sounds a bit like this Stockholm syndrome. You start falling in love with your tormentor. You feel like ‘I can’t do without him.’

Q: And sometimes, it’s like the amount of time I have spent listening to the mind is so much bigger in amount, so this pursuit itself, it starts questioning.

A: Of course, it does not like this at all. It will find every way to attack that which is being pointed to, who is pointing to it …, and you. It will doubt all of this. It will attack all of this because it doesn’t like it. That is the design of this mind. It’s like a video game, where this one is designed to make you believe that you are a video game character. But your mother outside is calling you back home saying ‘Stop playing now. It’s only making you tired.’

Q: And I think for me it’s more the mind still has more control over the body so when I feel sad, I feel I am not energetic that day at work; and the next day when I’m happier, it is because nothing is bothering me.

A: Yes, yes, there are all these energetic sensational constructs that we experience. The feeling of sadness or the feeling of joy actually has nothing to do with the report of sadness or joy. It does seem to get amplified with it. If the feeling is there and the idea is there ‘Yes, I am feeling so sad’ then yes, it does seem to get lot more amplified. This is true.

But the fact is that the labelling of it, the terms … (what was I saying to someone the other day?): why do you call it sadness? I said if you call it (popcorn or something; what was it?) potatoes. Suppose you woke up with a mind one day which was very different. Sadness was coming and all the mind could say was ‘Oh, potato is here; oh, potatoes is here.’ [Chuckles] You see, you would not take yourself that seriously. These interpretations, these judgments, these labels actually seem to amplify our experience in some way. But I would not say it’s in any control whatsoever. Like I say: Does it know how to move a finger?

Q: I don’t know what I’m saying now. I don’t know what is going on.

A: [Chuckles] They say you have to fire a neuron the move a finger, you have to get the nerves activated; how do you do that?

Q: It happens.

A: It happens! [Laughter] Also, now physicists will be able to prove where every atom is going to be in the next moment in time; they will have some equation and they can tell you. So, this idea that I am moving my hand, it just operates on some physicist’s mathematical equation. So, it doesn’t have any control but it seems to claim that ‘I’m running your life.’ It does not know how to move a finger but tells you ‘What’s going to happen to your life without me?’

But that is why having a Master is so good. They are showing you what is going to happen. Guruji [Sri Mooji] has this nice way of saying it. He says ‘Okay, keep it away for sometime. It will be there for you. Try how it is without it.’ [Chuckles] It helps us get over our fear. Like ‘I will keep it safe for you. I will keep it in a safe locker box and you see how it is without it. And if you want it back, you can take it.’

Q: Sometimes it is also about the validation from other minds.

A: It thrives on it. The mind thrives on this; approval, validation, all these things.

Q: And then there was a statement that you had said last week, that even people on spiritual paths have this ‘Oh yeah, we are doing it right, we got it right.’

A: Of course. Spiritual ego is one of the stickiest egos ever made.

Q: It is a really hard time for me. It is a really hard time because the people around me are quite religious and I am the only one who is like this and sometimes I get confused. Am I in the middle? I’m not going there. And then I’m like ‘You are not supposed to feel proud about this’ but I don’t know what to do there. Then where are you?

A: What are you …, empty of positions?

Q: That is what I am trying to…

A: …get to? That would be a position if you had to get to It. If somebody was trying to tell me this 28 years ago, I would be like ‘What is he saying?’ It can sound like this. But even that is a position that ‘I have to get to it.’ Like, I have to get to my notion-less-ness or get to my position-less-ness. But you see all ‘get to’ is a notion; all ‘get to’ is a position.

What are you Now?

Q: In your Presence, it is nothing, absolutely. But the noise is so loud outside.

A: Okay, but at least then, you have a refuge. This is a conundrum question that I face. How do I answer you? Because [you say] ‘In your Presence, it’s all fine.’ I cannot speak to you without the Presence. [Gestures that he’s trying to take something out of himself and then looks flustered] [Laughter]

But I can remind you that this Presence, which for some time will feel like it is my Presence (like, Ananta’s Presence) actually it is Your own Presence. It’s Your own Divine Presence, unclouded by the clouds of your mind.

The mind will come with its ‘But…, but what about outside, but what about at work, but what about family?’ But nothing …, about anything. It just offers up these fake premises to you and says ‘What about this, what about that?’ It’s nothing.

In all of this: What is the story that it is selling to you? It’s selling you that you are this body/mind; only this.

Q: Everything is a concept. Mind uses these concepts to trap. Unlearning seems difficult. Free me from these concepts.

A: You have the services of the best cleaning lady in the world. [Referring to Consciousness/God] Because the concept might keep coming back that ‘The concepts have you trapped you’ but they cannot survive even this moment. Like even now if I were to ask ‘What is troubling you?’ you have to take a moment to think about it. It is not naturally present, you see? So, therefore, in this moment, you must be free from it already.

Then the concept itself will come and say ‘But… what happens when they come back?’ So, like I was saying, just this notion you have to deal with; just one message at a time, which will come and say ‘But … (something). But … this.’ Let that one come and go. Because if you know that, if you give it your assent, if you give it your belief, then it will seem like your life is restricted, limited by that.

If you don’t know it? Suppose you forgot the language which the mind was speaking; like if it is saying something and for you it has become like Russian, then can it trap you?

Only when we ascribe some meaning to it, when we claim to understand what these concepts are, only then the struggle comes. But we don’t know anything at all. Even to say ‘up or down’ or ‘trapped or free’ we have to make ourselves into ‘something.’ We have to give our self a position to say that something is ‘up or down’ or that ‘I am bound or free.’ But that position is not naturally present.

Q: A lot of conversation in the mind. It just speaks up. Everything about Awareness also and I’m still stuck about this right and wrong; with Awareness. I know this ‘I’ also traps me. I’m not able to go beyond this.

A: It is happening for a few of us in the Sangha. It is happening for a few of us where the mind is using Satsang concepts themselves. Like it is speaking about ‘Awareness’ or about ‘I’ and that itself seems to have become a mind trap. That is why in the last few weeks, I have been just looking at dissolving even the concepts which seem like our holiest concepts because even those can seem like limited positions.

But now, you have to stay with me a bit, and you have to tell me what is troubling you: Right Now? Like Now, Now, Now, Now? [Chuckles] Soon you will say ‘Stop, stop, give me a moment to think’. That means naturally, in this Now, all of that trouble is gone. The mind will come with a ‘But…’ and say ‘But (something).’ Isn’t it? And because we have invested in that, it can seem like it is really true. So, empty of any knowledge, including the terms of ‘Awareness’ or ‘I’ or ‘Consciousness’ or anything, you are untroubled in your notion-less Existence.

Q: It seems more of a calculation now; Consciousness, Awareness, I, Self. I need to calculate it.

A: Yes, if you are inferring, if you are calculating, if you’re intellectualizing, conceptualizing, then these terms have no value. Then they are the same as mud. It is no big deal. So, allow these terms to come up when your heart speaks them; not when your mind speaks them. Till then, they are as meaningless as everything else.

Q: So, I should wait for it to come that way?

A: You don’t wait. If your intuitive Presence one day wants to use these terms, using your mouth, then it will use them. Till then, you can drop all your inferences. Because nothing that you know conceptually actually means anything at all.

Q: Yeah, I need to drop them.

A: Yes. But the good news is that Guruji is doing even that. It is already done. Now, will you trust this? Or will you trust when the mind comes and says ‘But, but…’?

Q: I trust Guruji.

A: Very good. If you pick up the doership that ‘I need to drop it’ then that will become another thing that you have to drop.

Q: Yeah. That’s true. That’s trapping; all the concepts of Awareness, Consciousness; in that way they are very trapping. I have to not use my mind.

A: Yes, yes. The mind itself takes ownership of these concepts that it hears in Satsang, then tries to become your mental Guru. It tries to impress you using the Satsang concepts itself. Then what can happen is that, funnily, the more you are in Satsang, the more those concepts also get reinforced at times. That’s why sometimes in Satsang you have to hear that these concepts are also ultimately concepts. You can safely be empty of everything. And when you’re empty of everything, if one day your intuitive Presence has a use for these conceptual terms, then it will use that. You remain empty; you remain open. How to do it? It’s already Here. It already is this way.

A: True.

A: Now the mind will come and tell you ‘But my problem was bigger than that. It cannot be that straight forward, that simple.’ It is like ‘But I really had a serious problem.’ It will convince you. And it will say ‘But that was too straightforward so I have to keep up the problem for some time.’ Like in the movie, no? We don’t like the movies where the ending is too abrupt. So, we’re like ‘Okay, we had a problem. Then one-step, two-steps, three-steps; the problem went away.’ Like that. So, we don’t actually like it; something in us actually does not like it too much when I say ’Actually, you don’t have problem Right Now.’ [You will want to say]: ‘But I have believed in this, that I have a problem.’ [Smiles]

So, just to meet yourself fresh, meet yourself without any interpretation, good or bad; any position left or right.

Q: But that means learning disconnects me more. And I was trying to learn more and more about everything, Awareness and Consciousness, and this was trapping more.

A: Yes. So, what happens is that we keep conceptualizing more and more; we keep intellectualizing and reasoning more and more. You used a very good word ‘calculate.’ You cannot calculate the way to the truth. It is not that ‘Awareness multiplied by Consciousness divided by emptiness’ will lead you to the Truth. But sometimes we feel like when we come to Satsang, it is like that. It is none of that. Our reasoning, our intellectualizing, at best can say ‘It is not this.’ But it cannot affirm what It Is. Like, our reasoning at best can say ‘All that is changing is not It.’ So, then it is no longer bothered about all that is changing. But it cannot point to what actually Is. But when we use terms sometimes, then the term (which was meant to be used playfully as language, as tools, as a pointer for communication) then the terms themselves become like a struggle; like our suffering [which asks] ‘Why can’t I stay as Awareness?’

If Awareness is the truth, you should not be able to lose it. Why do you have to stay in it? [Smiles] So, best for some time to forget about it. Forget about it. Come to Satsang and you will see that the affliction of even intellectual spiritual knowledge will start to loosen its grip on you.

Q: That is happening. [Silence] What is identity? ‘Sticking to identities?’ I have heard this a lot in Satsang, but still not … (again, my mind is of course asking about this ‘concept’).

A: Yes. To believe anything about yourself is ‘identity’ …, including believing that ‘I must become empty of identity’ or ‘I must have a position with regards to identity’ or ‘I am afflicted by identity.’ All of these are just identity.

Now again, I keep reminding you that: NOW, it is gone actually. No identity has survived this moment (unless you make a belief system out of even this; unless you make an inference out of even this).

Now, if I were to say to you ‘What I am saying to you in neither true nor false’ how would you keep that?

Q: I would keep it.

A: You can’t keep it. You see, that is the thing.

Q: It is just ‘Now’ that will keep me in this Now. Dropping all the concepts of Awareness, Consciousness, Self to get freed. Thank you so much.

We said yesterday that ‘To know one thing is to know too much.’ [Smiles]

So, to know one thing is to know too much. Then what do you know when you know nothing?

To know one thing is to know too much. Then what do you know when you know nothing?

[Someone in sangha says]: We know everything.

[A]: No. [Smiles]

[Someone in sangha says]: We know ‘You Are.’

[A]: Just contemplate this.

[Contemplative Silence]

[Someone in sangha says]: We don’t know anything; we are everything. [Smiles]

[A]: Do you know this?

[They repeat]: ‘We do not know anything or everything.

[A]: But do you know this? The question is: To know one thing is to know too much. Then what do you know when you know nothing?

[Someone in sangha says]: It seems, Father, to know something is to have a concept.

[A]: So, what do you know when you do not have a concept of anything?

[Someone in sangha says]: I do not know anything.

[A]: You do not know anything. Do you know that? [Sangha member laughs]

[Someone in sangha says]: I exist.

[A]: Do you know that? Do you know ‘I’ exist? You know what existence is?

Then you know something. Then how do you know nothing then?

[Someone in sangha says]: It is like a wordless knowing. It’s wordless. I know, but I can’t say.

[A]: But do you it is wordless knowing? [Smiling]

[Someone in sangha says]: You cannot even say ‘I do not know anything.’ It also sounds like a concept.

[A]: Yes, but then what is left?

Okay, Gopala has come just now. So, we are playing a game, okay? We are contemplating a question. And although I might be laughing about it, I mean it seriously for you to contemplate; which is that ‘is to know one thing is to know too much. What is it that you know when you know nothing?’ You got it? I can repeat.

[He says]: Yeah, yes, yes, yes. I apologize, if you can repeat it.

[A]: Okay, so I am repeating again now, which is we said ‘To know one thing is to know too much?’ Then my question is ‘What do you know, when you know nothing?’

[He says]: There is nothing to know.

[A]: Do you know that?

[He says]: Yeah.

[A]: You know that? Then you do not know anything.

[He says]: Then I know nothing.

[A]: But you know you know nothing.

[He says]: Yeah.

[A]: Then you know something. [Chuckles]

[He says]: In addition, even that is a position, you said yesterday. I know nothing. I used to know actually. I knew that. Who needs to know?

[A]: That is not the answer or the question. What do you know when you know nothing?

[Someone in sangha says]: It’s not something.

[A]: Do you know that? [Laughter]

[Someone in sangha says]: Is there an answer to it?

[A]: Of course, why would I ask?

[Someone in sangha says]: It is like one hand clapping.

[A]: Whatever it is. [Chuckles] To know one thing is to know too much.

[Someone in sangha says]: Just because we say something, does not mean we know.

[A]: But, that is the claim. You know? Like ‘Here is a lie, coming up.’ [Chuckles]

[Silence]

[Someone in sangha says]: It cannot be solved, what you’re asking.

[A]: Now, what is the answer?

[Someone in sangha says]: That there is no answer for this.

[A]: Do you know that?

[Someone in sangha says]: I do not know; at least, like the way I know.

[A]: Then, why would I ask?

[Someone in sangha says]: That you only know.

To know one thing is to know too much.

What do you know when you know nothing?

Even to know that ‘I Am’ is too much. Even that can be that one thing.

[Someone in sangha says]:  Can we say that ‘there is no answer to this because this…

[A]: Do you know that there is no answer? Then you know one thing. [Chuckles]

That is also to know too much.

[Someone in sangha says]: The answer to this is ‘there are not two.’

[A]: Then you know that one thing that ‘there are no two.’ That is also too much.

[Reading from chat]: Somebody asks “What is too much?” Too much means that your cup is full. You are not open anymore. If to know one thing means your cup is full, to know one thing is to know too much. And what is it that you know when you know nothing?

[Silence]

[Someone in sangha says]: To know something is a conclusion.

[A]: To know something is a conclusion. Do you know that? [Chuckles]

[He says]: Yes.

[A]: Then, that is too much.

[He says]: What I am trying to find is ‘I Am’ which is not even ‘me.’

[A]: Then, what is it?  ‘I Am’ sounds like a conclusion to me. ‘I Am.’ [Smiles]

[Someone in sangha says]: There is no space for the mind. There’s just no space to think anything.

[A]: Do you know that?

[She says]: Yeah, if I think about it, then I know something. [Smiles]

[A]: So, if you know that then you know too much.

[She says]: I am telling, just because you ask.

[A]: No. ‘What do you know when you know nothing?’ is what I want to know.

[She says]: How can I know something, when I know nothing?

[A]: That is what I am asking. What is it? Do you not know anything when you know nothing?

[She says]: It’s just like word play.

[A]: It is not word play, it is not a puzzle.

[Someone in sangha says]: Should I tell you ‘There is no need to know anything’?

[A]: No, that is the word in the question.

[Someone in sangha says]: How can we know ‘nothing?’ How can I know ‘nothing’?

[A]: You want to know nothing? Like ‘How can I?’ means ‘How do I get to that? or ‘How can…’ means what?

[Someone in sangha says]: No, I am just saying, you know. If there is nothing then it can’t be known.

[A]: That is too much to know already.

[Reading from chat]: She also says what Tejas said, that ‘There is no need to know.’ But even to know that is too much.

To know even one thing is to know too much.

What is it when you know, when you know nothing?

I know that the mind really wants to be the one to get the right answer; if one exists. This is to know too much.

[Someone in sangha says]: It is out of the book syllabus. [Laughter in Sangha]

[A]: That is also to know too much.

So, I am just answering all the questions:

[Reads and responds to few comments typed onto the chat]:

“To know whether it is knowing or experiencing” … is also to know too much.

“That it is nothing” … is also to know too much.

“It feels beyond words” … is also to know too much.

“You cannot comprehend it” … is also to know too much.

“It does not require an answer” … is also to know too much.

“Brahman never gave Satsang; only Knowing is giving Satsang’ … is also to know too much.

“To know that I do not know” … is too much.

“Ignorance is bliss” … is also too much.’

[Meditative Silence]

[Doesn’t say what he read on chat but responds with]: Too much, my dear; too much, too much.

And I know the mind, for some of you, must be being smart and saying ‘To know it is too much is also too much.’ Yes, yes, it is too much. [Smiles]

[Responding to a chat]: To know that “I don’t know an answer” … is also too much.

[Reading chat]: “To seemingly, to recognize that I know nothing, I must admit there is a belief standing apart, that claims this freedom is ‘not-knowing.’ Then I cannot know anything about myself or knowing because I cannot know what belief is and there needs to be belief to recognize anything.”

That “There needs to be belief to recognize anything” … is also to know too much.

[Meditative Silence]

To know even one thing is to know too much.

What do I know when I know nothing?

Sometimes it can feel like ‘Where is my return on my investment? I invested so much on this seeker identity and I’m not getting any validation, any approval. What have I really achieved?’ Isn’t it? While we keep holding these positions, this identity, including the seeker itself, it is natural for the mind to jump to the opposite because then people start saying silly stuff like ‘Oh, I’m not seeking anymore. I used to be seeking but I’ve come to the end of my seeking.’ That’s also a position. Beyond seeking and not-seeking, what is there? [Silence]

This compulsiveness of taking a position is what humanity has been taught, in a way. And it seems like it’s taken the naturalness, the original-ness, out of our life. All our positions are about ‘What’s in it for me?’ This ‘What’s in it for me?’ is pervasive. You might not spot it yet, you might not agree yet, but this idea (‘for me’) is looking for some validation, looking for some approval, is looking for some meaning. And this struggle for meaning in this ‘me’ (to find meaning for this ‘me’) is a never-ending one. Because this ‘me’ dissolves every moment. So, it’s like trying to build a house of cards very fast, because now it is gone. Then again, the thoughts will come, the notions will come. You start to build fast but you know that the next moment is going to bring the purity of Being. [Silence]

Complete Unconditional Being is Right Here, Right Now. But we want to build some concepts from the past and build a story; we want to project ourselves into the future. What is at the end of all of this? You’ll ultimately only be left with whatever is Here Now.

Whatever you might do, nothing can add one thing to Your Being which is naturally present Now. You read ten thousand books, you attend ten thousand Satsangs, you have the most spiritual experiences, all your chakras could be shining (or not) but you’ve never added one iota to your natural Being which is present Here effortlessly. And in the same way, whatever you feel guilty about (if you feel like you’ve been the worst sinner, you’ve done terrible things) not one iota can be taken out of Your Being. Being has just remained as Being.

So, what is all of this about? This is the game the Being Itself is playing. It’s a play of individuality, a play of separation, which can never ever truly happen. But there is one sphere of your life where it does seem to happen, one sphere of your existence where it does seem to happen; that is your mental sphere. It doesn’t happen … (if you were to play with making some distinctions) it doesn’t happen in the materialistic sphere, it doesn’t happen in the sphere of this body, it doesn’t happen in the sphere of your emotions or your intellect, it doesn’t happen in the sphere of your Being and nothing ever happens in the Absolute Unchanging Self. But in one sphere, when you get involved in this sphere of conceptualization, the sphere of interpreting, then it can feel like something actually happened.

Only one version of You is a limited version. It never actually exists but it seems to be. This is your mental version. What is this mental version? It’s full of ‘should’/ ‘could’/ ‘would’ …, ‘Life should be like this, life could have been like this; if only I would have done that, then life would be different.’ Basically, a set of resistances. Just resisting ‘What Is’ in one way or the other.

Find any excuse to resist ‘What Is’ and you’re resisting your own peace.

Of course, it feels completely justified because nobody feels like their beliefs are wrong. Nobody ever feels their beliefs are wrong as long as they continue to hold them. Until life confronts these beliefs, until a Master comes and confronts these beliefs, until your relationships come and confront your beliefs …, and then you recognize ‘Oh, this was just another way to resist life.’ And we keep falling for the same old trick over and over again. And every time we fall for it, we feel like ‘This one is authentic, this one is real, this one is really happening; there is a ‘me’ here.’ And over and over we live our life as if every day is April Fool’s day. Every day the trickster offers new tricks and you say ‘Yes, this is it.’

So, when we come to Satsang, we learn to recognize these tricks and we learn how to not get involved, to not ‘log in’ as my Master would say. So, then the question is ‘How do I decide what a trick from the mind is?’ And you might not like this answer, but it is ‘everything’. Everything it is saying is a trick. Every position, every notion, every idea is a resistance to ‘What Is.’ Nothing that you can think about yourself can ever depict Reality. [Silence]

Now what can happen? This can hurt initially because some of these ideas we are deeply invested in. And you can shine your own light on these ideas which you think are completely justified, which you think you completely know: ‘It is like this.’ Even those who’ve been in Satsang for long time, sometimes we have a conversation with them and they say ‘Ananta, but it is like this’! It is how the mind is saying.

These sticky notions, what are they bringing to your life? In your righteousness, what have you ever got? Just a false idea that you figured something out, that you know what something is. [Silence]

Not one thing we can truly say, not one thought we can claim to be truly right. I was saying yesterday that ‘To know one thing is to know too much.’ Now you’ve come to this point in Satsang which is: To know one thing is to know too much.

It’s like, all of you know this Zen saying about your cup being full. Now your cup is getting full if you put one drop in it.

Only complete openness, complete emptiness, complete nakedness.

And don’t make the actions of your body a reference point to You. You remain empty. Leave this wave to be taken care of by the ocean.

What idea is needed for you to Exist? If there is no idea needed for you to exist. And Your Existence is the light of this Universe.

As soon as you exist, this whole play starts. And it is happening so effortlessly that some of us in spirituality are making a lot of effort to exist but not to experience this play, to try and get into Samadhi (and these kind of things). Because the play is happening so effortlessly, it seems like you are making a lot of effort to escape this play. Then if the play is happening effortlessly, let it be, no?

What does it take for you to leave all of this?

What does it take?

Does it take a lot of suffering?

Does it take a thousand Satsangs?

Or are you not done yet with the taste of individuality?

Is there still some hope for the non-existent one?

How long will we play as the prodigal son?

Your Being is Here with open arms.

Let go of all distinctions.

Let go of all language, all terminology (inwardly).

Release your hold on this world, on this life. It is not a true hold anyway.

Let everything be, including what comes out of this body’s mouth, what actions happen through your hands and feet, everything.

Let it unfold on its own.

Let go of everything that you hold.

Everything.

It is not worthy of Your Reality.

If it feels like you will fall …, fall.

You can only fall into Your own Being.

If fear is coming, don’t fear the fear. All kinds of fear will come. ‘What will happen to your life? Who will take care of your body?’ All of these are unfounded fears; unfounded on any basis.

Let all emotions arise.

Let the fear come.

[Reading from chat]: “Father, what do you do with the sense of boredom and the sense of ‘I’ when you just sit?”

We were taught this term ‘boredom.’ Suppose you forgot its meaning. We were not born with the idea of what boredom is. And actually, that which you call boredom will become very rare because actually we get bored with our notions of ‘What Is.’ When we put it in that box and we say ‘This is what is happening, I am just sitting alone at home, I am just sitting in my room, there is nothing to do …, and all my friends are traveling.’ You see? These are just ideas, but without these ideas, who is here? Who is alone? [Chuckles] You will not find yourself getting bored (or that which you call boredom) because in every moment there is so much wonder in this world, even in the phenomenal appearance. Sometimes we just look at the body. [Wow] [Chuckles]

Q: Thought can arise? I mean, if I look at it

A: The thought can arise but we don’t have to buy into it. [Points to the questioner] Look at it; thought will come or not but that is irrespective. You have stepped back from that equation; you are no longer a variable dependent on thought. (You can probably tell I have been helping my son with some algebra.) [Laughter] What do you do with the sense of boredom? Just don’t know what the boredom is and this sense of ‘I.’ When you just sit, this sense of ‘I,’ if it feels natural for you to hold onto it, hold onto it. If it feels natural for attention to just go everywhere, not even holding onto this sense of ‘I,’ then forget about it, it’s okay. If mouth is speaking, mouth is speaking; if the mouth is not speaking mouth is not speaking. If eyes are seeing, eyes are seeing; if eyes are not seeing eyes are not seeing. There is always hearing anyway. [Chuckles] If there is hearing attentively there is hearing attentively; if there is not hearing attentively there is not hearing attentively. All senses everything; sitting, standing, lying down.

[Reading from chat]: “It’s easier to not believe a thought except when it is the’ I’ thought.”

It might sound strange to you but forget what the ‘I’ thought is. And don’t get into any position which is in opposition to thought. Because many times when I say it like this, then we might have a position like ‘Come on, you go, thought! No, no, not you.’ You see? Like that. Not even that. Just like open space: everything comes and goes, everything comes and goes. Not for or against anything at all. Neither accepting nor rejecting. Just not taking any positions.

[Reading from chat]: “There is a strong belief that the ‘I’ thought should disappear for true freedom to be experienced.”

Okay. Three, two, one gone! [Laughter] Experience it; don’t judge it. You said for freedom to be experienced …, so I am saying experience it; don’t judge it. Taste your freedom, don’t give it a rating.

That which you feel is the best version of yourself, that version of yourself which you think you cannot do without, surrender it. Let it go. Because no version of you compares with the Reality of You.

You know what the best part is? The best part is that life is doing all of this for you already. In this moment, all that is being ‘pointed to’ is done.

But the trickster will come and it will say ‘No, no, no, but … (something).’ It uses various tricks. It says ‘But … this is not yet true for me. I still have to mature. But … this is not true for me because … (whatever).’ It will say ‘But Ananta is speaking from ultimate perspective.’ You see? That’s also a very good defense to everything that is said in Satsang. ‘Oh, yes, yes, that is fine from the ultimate perspective.’

The problem is you know too much. Or at least, you think you know too much. Forget all these ideas. Return to your innocence. Your mental knowledge is your ego, fundamentally. Whatever you think you know, is the ego. Whatever you think you are right about, that brings it even closer isn’t it? [Chuckles] Because you can say ‘Yeah, my knowledge is okay. It’s not so good. I must become empty.’ And then when I say ‘Whatever you think you’re right about …’ that makes it even more intimate, isn’t it?

That which you feel like you have to justify that you’re right about is nothing but separation.

So, does this mean that you have to have an aversion to the mind? No, it doesn’t. Because even that is a position. My younger brother, while growing up, he would make up a lot of stories. When he was really young, like 4 to 5 years old, he would speak and just make up some stories, that ‘This happened and I saw this and I saw that.’ He would just keep saying things like that. So, then what happens? You love your brother but you don’t trust what he is saying, isn’t it? In the same way, because the mind is also Consciousness, you can love it for what It Is but you cannot believe what it is saying about to you (or about anything for that matter).

How are you doing the hearing of the bird? How are you beating your heart? How are you seeing through your eyes? How are you making smell function? Everything is happening effortlessly.

How are you existing right now? What idea is needed for you to exist?

If there is no idea needed for you to exist and your existence is the light of this world, as soon as you exist, this whole play starts.

Again, I’m pointing out that this has nothing to do with action or in-action. If you try to relate it back to the coconut [metaphor] then it will feel like ‘Okay, how do I behave now? What words should say? What should I not say?’

I am just pointing you to openness which is your original nature, to that Knowing-ness which is beyond all conceptual knowing.

So, whether ‘chopping wood, fetching water’ continues or not is not what I am speaking of. [Smiles] Sometimes even these can become conclusions, in the sense that we might hear that ‘Before enlightenment, chopping wood, fetching water. After enlightenment, chopping wood, fetching water.’ [Smiles] And it can be like that. It’s a beautiful pointing. But remember that it doesn’t have to be. It can be anything at all.

If you feel like there is a report or conclusion about yourself without which you cannot survive, then you can expose that one. [Smiles] If there is some conceptual knowing which is central to your very existence, if you feel that way, then you can expose that one (which is the same as surrender or inquire into it) and check:

Whose life is dependent on this conclusion, on this notion?

Even Freedom, which might have started seemingly like an idea …, but now you are letting go of the notion of it and you are tasting something undefinable; not a thing at all.

[Reading from chat exposes a notion]: “When I get to Sahaja / Bangalore, then I will really be free.”

[Ananta smiles]

Our report, whatever it might be, will have nothing to do with Reality.

So, this is the habit. And we are coming to Satsang to get rid of this habit, to de-addict ourselves from this, to get free from this. Because this is the ego. This is how we limit ourselves, by this pretend-knowing. Nobody knows it but that’s why everybody fights. That’s why everybody fights, no? Because everybody has their conclusion. None of them are true but we hold on to them and that’s why there is disagreement.

Q: You know Father, this is just something else. I’m looking at it because when I [Inaudible]… Father, I know I’m making a story…

A: No. This is the knowledge that I’m always what I’m talking about. Don’t bring this knowledge into the picture; it is not helping you. What is Is; what was was, what will be will be. You don’t need to make any definition about anything because you don’t know what happened. It is only a claim. It is only a claim and a claim is never true. A claim cannot capture 0.00001% of what Is.

The Is-ness cannot be captured in any statement, in any conclusion that you make. This is the habit. And if I say ‘No, no, no’ there might even be this idea that ‘Now I’m being invalidated’ or something; which is not true. I’m trying to validate the True You by invalidating this knower of things, this conceptualizer of things. So, idea is not to hurt any one of you; the idea is just to get you to see but we are so dependent on our conclusions, that ‘This is what happened and now that was that, now this is this.’ It isn’t. It is just fairytales.

The other day I was saying in Satsang that if there was one practice that I would have given you all it would be to just sit. What does it mean? Just to sit without any intention, without any conclusion, without any judgement, without any expectation. Then somebody told me this just yesterday or the day before; they were saying ‘Father, this is what they call Zazen.’ That sounds very good to me.

When I’m saying ‘Just sit’ it doesn’t mean that you have to physically sit. When I’m saying ‘Just sit’ it doesn’t mean that your mouth has to be closed. It’s like you have no intention or expectation about anything. You can stand. ‘You’ won’t be standing; the body can stand, the body can jump, the body can sit. But you will not have a judgment, you will not have a conclusion, even if it feels a bit tricky. Sit inconclusively (in the sense of not making a conclusion that ‘I’m so inconclusive). [Chuckles] This is openness.

Every conclusion is a limitation, is a boundary by the mind. The thing is that I’m noticing in some of you is that you are referring back to what the mind is saying also. ‘Now what do you think about this?’ [Chuckles] What do you think it will think? It will only give you a conclusion which is offered to you and say ‘This is valid. This is actually true.’ You see? This is the thing.

Q: I feel that (and I want to check with you) this ‘not-knowing’ is not a position. It doesn’t seem like a position. But, maybe I’m wrong, Father. So, please point it out, if so. It doesn’t seem like it is. It is like my nature. I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it; like if something arises… Please help clarify.

A: Yes, I can clarify and make it simpler. This ‘not-knowing’ actually also means that we make no distinction. What happens then is that we don’t make a distinction of ‘what my nature is.’ We are not even specifying what we know or don’t know; in the sense that we are not making any sense of separation, we are not making a distinction. And all our knowing (in a way, whether we realize it or not) has been used as a tool to create some distinction, separation.

So, when [Nisargadatta] Maharaj said ‘Make no distinctions’ he was already saying everything I am trying to say actually.

Q: I’ve been looking at it, Father. Now, what is happening is there is so much love coming. A lot of love. It’s not constant; it comes and goes, and that’s fine. And I was thinking that the ability to think something bad about somebody else is just not there. Okay? And I’ve been noticing like every time there may be an action that could hurt somebody else, I’m only hurting myself. There’s nobody else that I can hurt.

A: Yes.

Q: I can’t tell you that in my vision ‘It’s One.’ I can’t tell you that, Father. The vision is One but the mind will still label stuff, Father. But what I am noticing is about the ability to hurt another. In a way, yesterday I was contemplating this a lot and then I said ‘But you know, I can’t hurt another. I mean, if I hurt somebody else what happens? I only hurt myself.’ So, I don’t know. For me, I have heard your term of ‘separation’ for long time and I have been contemplating that, Father. And for me it means distance from me. Actually, what I have realized is that for me it means (not like your body here, no) it is actually ‘What is its distance from me?’ that seems to… And when I look at something and not visually …

A: Okay, before we get to next point, this point is very important. This is a beautiful exploration on separation. So, you say ‘I check and I find what is its distance from me.’ But even within that, we can also explore: ‘What am I defining as me?’

Q: Right. What I’m defining as me (I really want to check it fully today) what I am defining as me is …, (I have really struggled with this separation and really looked at it) …, how is what I see … (I will tell you the questions, I don’t have the answer): How is what I look at separate from me? Because the mind says ‘Oh, that is there, this sensation is there and I am here’ and that’s how this separation starts for me, Father. So, then when I do label it (anything, any sensation) then I don’t know where it is, first of all. I don’t know the distance also from me. I don’t know where it is. So, in a sense, I am not defining ‘me.’

A: So, let’s take this first. So, the sensations are defined as ‘me.’ So, when you look, you see that there is a set of sensations. Now, all sensations, you are experiencing them. So, what is the distinction, distinguishing factor between the sensation of the sound of the bird and the sensation of the body, like pain or pleasure or just like touch?

Q: Nothing. I mean the mind says a lot, the mind will really come in at this question like crazy Father, but there is no difference. If I really, really [check] there is no difference. But I have to say, Father, the natural tendency is that it just happens and it says ‘Okay, it’s different.’

A: You can say ‘The natural tendency at the moment’ …, because it’s a tendency, which means it’s a habit…

Q:  Yes, it’s a habit.

A: … to be able to define it. ‘Oh, apparently there is the sound of traffic but that is not me. Only a certain set of sensations are me.’ And that is the tendency, that is the habit; to distinguish and say ‘These sensations define a ‘me’ and these sensations are not a ‘me.’ Then what happens is that we can take it one step further with our sense of attachment. It’s like ‘These sensations are me but there are also other sensations which are outside this body-boundary which are mine (my family, my relationship, my things, my house) which are also sensations; perceptions. But we include that in a ‘me’ by using a broader label called ‘mine.’

So, if something happens to that, then again it feels like something happened to me. But if it happens to something a hundred miles away or something that we are not attached to then it’s not mine or me.

So, even with this definition of ‘me’ …, we don’t confine it to just body sensations, we also expand to our attachments of ‘me and mine.’ So, there are a certain sense of sensations, perceptions, that we call ‘me’ and there are others that we call ‘mine’ and there are ‘others’ (those which we are not attached to, which we call ‘others’).

Q: Right. But they are just labels. I can sense that. I think, Father, I like the word possibility because I am open to any possibility, Father.

A: So, just to look at this separation more. That’s why I said: How do we define the ‘me’? And you are just seeing that ‘All that I experience is just a set of sensations.’

Q: So how I define the ‘me’ Father? For me, it is based on these sensations that I have become very intimate with. Okay? So, it can be like the body, it can be…

A: Some energetic feeling.

Q: … the problem of just this constriction. Then, of course, ownership of things. Whatever I take ownership of (it can be anything; it can be something even fifty-thousand miles away) but if I take ownership of it, then it is ‘me.’ So, that’s such an important point you are telling me, Father, because I must look at it: What am I defining as me?

A: That’s good and we can take as much time as is needed on this. Because what you just mentioned is that something which is fifty-thousand miles away, then that is not even a sensation; that is purely conceptual.

Q: Yes, yes, yes.

A: You see? So, it’s not even a present sensation which we have attached to then. Then it is just purely a conceptual idea …, and conceptual to the extent that we can’t even confirm the existence of it phenomenally. It’s just some idea we have that there is something that exists there and that is mine. So, this is very good: the nature of what we define as me and mine.

Q2: A set of past memories.

A: It can be a past memory. It has to rely on memory, actually. It has to rely on memory.

Q2: It’s as good as past memory, no?

A: Yes. But a concept of the memory; a concept of a repository of images that we call memory. Our repository of concepts is also included in that.

Q: So, one of things I have been [contemplating] …, you have been saying ‘Trust your insight.’ You know, I have tried to make your words mine. It hasn’t worked; very honestly, Father. They have been great, they have really been fantastic but it’s almost like passing the bit; you really have to then. And I think that…

A: I have to say that even my words are not mine. [Chuckles] Like if I were to make any words mine, it would be false ownership.

Q: I think what is really, really … (and there is a lot of contentment about it) … is to not ask any questions. Just to stay with what is Here. Because, in that, every question is not valid, in a sense. I had so much of a need for some insight or whatever. It doesn’t really matter. Like ‘Oh, what? Space.’ Nothing matters; none of it makes any sense to me, Father. But what I can sense is just when there is no modulation of any sort then there is no problem (or at least there is no buying of modulation). Then there is no problem.

A: Yes.

Q: And in that space, there is no need to know, it seems. I’m referring to the need to find out. That was the thing. And I find, Father, when I don’t need to buy anything … (my life is busy. You know, it’s just like morning till night, it’s just like go, go, go, go) … but when I don’t hold any concepts about it, it’s just so easy. The whole day is so easy. There may be times when I get upset with somebody, but it is false. There is nothing being held onto. But the minute I hold one thing, one thing, the minute I call it ‘mine’ it just…, then there is suffering. And even the smallest thing now creates very big suffering. So, coming to ‘me’ …, Father, I have been looking at this. [Silence] The ‘me’ as I understand it is a concept. Okay? Because it’s a thought. Essentially, I’m using multiple thoughts to create a ‘me.’ I can’t think of what I am so I can’t give you any answer in that sense of what is me or what I am.

A: So, this is very useful for everyone to hear, right? When we do a contemplation (for example, on separation) and we are trying to figure out the distance between me and anything else, it’s also very useful to see what we are defining as the starting point, which is the ‘me.’ Like, distance from. Because the attention very quickly will go to see what the distance is and to look at that object in relation to me. But don’t leave that contemplation without first exploring what this ‘me’ itself is. What is the starting point of that distance? Distance is what? It’s between points A and B. That is the space, the spatial distance. So, what is the A point itself?

Q: So, for the longest time I have struggled with any appearance because it has become so natural to say ‘That is not me, that is not me’ but it wasn’t getting me anywhere. ‘Neti, Neti’ works but it’s frustrating beyond a point because you can just get stuck in that. I felt I got just stuck in that. And then the opposite started to happen (or the opposite is happening) in the sense where I am not struggling with ‘It’s not me, it’s not me, it’s not me.’ It’s just all allowed; all is allowed. In the traditional way of ‘me’ I can say ‘Yeah, that’s not me because it is supposedly external to myself.’ But if I hear your pointing, which is that ‘It is completely non-phenomenal, there is no attribute to it’ … okay? Still, there is no answer, Father. I can’t give you an answer.

A: An answer is needed only when there is a question left. [Chuckles]

Q: I can’t answer this, in a sense. I feel I need to … (Okay, I have gone to a concept). I have gone to a concept right now.

1. Everything can become like a self-definition, in a way. Even our contemplation, even our inquiry. What we are inquiring into these days is ‘What is the validity of any conclusion that we are making about ourself?’ So, ‘I want, I don’t want; I need to or I don’t need to.’ [Chuckles] Are these valid concepts, really? You are starting to See that ‘No, they are not’.

Q: Actually, all I can say Father, what I feel is that the more concept-less one is, there is no search anymore, there is no seeking happening. The seeking hasn’t dropped but it’s not like it used to be before I met you. There is no need for an answer. That’s all I can say, actually. Then whatever little tendency there is to figure it out, I wish to leave at your feet. Whatever tendency there is to pick up a story, I wish to leave at your feet, Father. I am happy to go wherever you wish to take me, Father.