BOOKS BY ANANTA Welcome to Satsang with Ananta

A: That is why I said that even if these by-products were not there…

Suppose I was to tell you that ‘No crying, no bliss, no tears; nothing will happen to You. All this which is happening, it’s fine. Forget it. It has nothing to do with the Reality of what You Are.’ Would you still long for the truth? Or not?

Q: I feel that… [Inaudible]

A: How do you know about this? [Smiles]

Q: Something is just happening; something is enjoying.

What he says is that ‘All of this is happening, but there is nobody there.’ Then I said ‘So, how do you know about this happening? Do you know about this happening?’

Either we are making it up like a concept…, (there are two things, right?) either it could be something conceptual, like ‘Ah, the world is moving; the Earth is rotating around the Sun’. We have a concept of it. Or we are aware of its functioning, happening. So, when you say that ‘There is nobody there, it is all just a happening’ then is this an inference, like a concept? Or is this your direct insight?

[Silence]

In either case, You have to be there. You have to be there. But the problem that has happened is that the ‘you’ or the ‘I’ has been used in the wrong way for so long that when it is being used for this quality-less, attribute-less Self then to the mind it can feel like ‘But I am not there.’

But You Are there. You are All-There-Is anyway. You are All-There-Is.

So, this ‘You’ can seem like such a different ‘You’ compared to what you thought you were that it can feel like ‘I can’t use the same ‘I’ for this and That’.

So, when you say that in Satsang also…, when you say that ‘There is nobody there’…, what do we mean? We mean that there is nobody there personally. There is no individual entity there. But All is You.

You Are All-There-Is.

You will be astounded as to the amazing Reality that You Are…, (and about that which you had considered yourself to be). There will some time before even this settles down and becomes more natural. [Smiles]

This is just a time of wonder. And in this time of big wonder, this outer ‘coconut’ [body/mind] will be sitting here; just like that. [Looks off into distance in wonder, eyes raised]

[Sangha Chuckles]

Sometimes there will be a big grin. [Laughs] And sometimes … [Makes contemplative but twisted face wondering] [Sangha Laughs]

I would read ‘The Yoga Vasistha’ many years ago, before I met Guruji [Sri Mooji]. I was reading the Yoga Vasistha…, and with the Yoga Vasistha, you read one story and after that story you are just … [Makes a face of mind-blown, stunned wonderment] And my wife would come to the room and she would say ‘What has happened to you? What are you thinking about? Is something bothering you?’ And I was just like…. [makes a face indicating just looking at her in stunned wonder, unable to answer]

This is just wonder. What is this?

Q: You can’t even say ‘I’. You can’t start the sentence. You can’t say ‘I’…, like a fool.

A: [Chuckles and looks at her lovingly] You can’t even say ‘I’. It is the greatest fool. It is the best fool ever.

The seeming switching-over of power…, Guruji said when we go from (the switch-over from) person to Being, that symptomatically some of these things can start to appear for us.

And again, I am saying every time, that it is never the same for any aspect of Consciousness. It is always paying with variety, always playing with differences. So, none of this must become like an expectation. But for those who are just finding these experiences in their life, I’m just reassuring you that it’s very, very natural.

[Reading from chat]: “Father, it is so clear that it is only this Awareness. Mind is shouting out loud ‘It can’t be this simple.’ This feels stronger than to say ‘Awareness.’ Somehow, I can’t grasp this I Am, I exist, I am alive. Probably, mind tries to perceive. It’s clear, but not crystal clear that I Am.”

So, if I say: ‘You just DON’T BE. Right Now, don’t be.’

[Smiles] You will say that ‘What kind of question is that?’

This is it. It’s that simple.

Don’t try to make it simple for the mind. Don’t try to get the mind to accept this.

You See it.

I say ‘Don’t be.

Right Now, don’t be.

Just for one moment, don’t exist.’

You are still here.

I cannot not exist.

Why? [Smiles] This which cannot go…, is not a coming and going. You can’t turn it on and off like this. This Being, this Existence, is what Guruji [Sri Mooji] says is the Deity of the waking state; Your very Existence.

And ultimately, You are beyond even this…, because even this, You are aware of …, as Your own dynamic aspect. That which is effortless, silent, innocent, witness to even this is so beyond all mental constructs.

That which is not a thing…, and yet, is all things…, which all things are made up of…, just That. We arise from just That. And go back into just That.

It is that clay which is making all these various pots of various shapes and sizes, but which Itself is not a thing.

Q: Father, you have been saying that if somebody would ask you ‘Why? [Do inquiry] Like, what you get?’ The only thing that arises here is the openness to be yourself. I mean, you’re looking at this because you can just be yourself without torturing yourself about ‘Why would you be?’ You know? And you can just openly share that. And in that, you find that there is no limitation and boundary. Isn’t that something that somebody would want to go towards? …, where you would (even as an individual) want to really go towards it, to see your own expansiveness?

A: Yes. And, you see, although this idea of limitlessness is very attractive to most Beings, the interpretation from the mind becomes about having siddhis, superpowers ‘Will I be able to predict the future? Will I be able to change the past? Will I be able to time travel? Will I be able to at five places at the same time?’ [Chuckles]

You are actually all of this and much more! But still, when the ‘me’ is carried, when the ‘me’ is carried along, then it can feel like ‘Power must mean that’. Isn’t it the most powerful that You are the light of this universe itself? [Laughs] The appearance of this entire play is in Your light, with all of this time, space, gravity, electricity, light, magnetism, sound; all of this is happening in Your very Presence. But then, if something is tweaked here and there, if some appearance of some object was appearing dead and suddenly it comes alive, that becomes a miracle. But what about space in which the miracle is happening? That’s not a miracle? That’s taken for granted.

All this time, it is appearing within You. You are the perceiver of it. You’ve experienced many different types of time. You have experienced dreams in which, in this world’s time, only little bit time has passed but a full lifetime has passed in the dream. You have experienced all of this in time. But if you can predict ‘Okay, tomorrow morning for breakfast you are going to eat this’ …, that is a superpower. [Chuckles] This is the thing. This is how limitlessness is understood in this world.

And what I am pointing you to is Your limitlessness, which is Your effortless Existence. But the condition has become so deeply ingrained; the notion of limitation, the notion of individuality seems to have become so deeply ingrained that these minor peanuts seem to be what we call limitlessness. [Chuckles] And this limitlessness which you are tasting Now: What is this?

So, the only seeming trouble is this ‘me, me, me’. Because otherwise, no trouble. Of there was no ‘ow, ow, ow’ then no trouble. The seeming-trouble is because this suffering is there, which is a result of the idea of a ‘me’ that can suffer.

Then the logical question then would be: What can I do about the ‘me’? As long as there’s a ‘me’ the ‘me’ has these attributes: doership, desire…, sense of separation, duality. The 3- ‘me’. So, this notion can ask; the logical question then is ‘What can I do? Is there something I can do to not play as this cat?’ One is that allow the ‘owl; to come into your life: Who, who?’ The second is to allow these notions to just come and go, just come and go. As they arise, they cannot be given a resting place of your belief, of your identification. And even if they are believed, the good news is that you are free of your entire belief system in this moment.

Can there be something more beautiful, that you could be one identified for one million lifetimes but when you check on YourSelf, this moment, in the freshness of this Now, it is all gone?

Then the next offer will come from the mind. ‘But, but, but, is it really gone? Come, come.’ Like that, it will come. You buy into that offer and it seems like the entire pool of conditioning, the entire tree of karma, seems to come back.

Actually, all our pretend ‘doing or not-doing’ is just part of the appearance of this world. Ultimately, Your own Grace, Your own Grace as Consciousness, just switches out of this limitation. [Silence] And then some of you have had an apparent awakening moment, like a face-palm moment. ‘What?!’ [Holds his head] [Chuckles] And some if you are very sober inside. ‘Huh. This is very straight-forward.’ This that is God, has always been God, has been taken to be something limited, something personal; which is not true. ‘I see there is no person. And yet, I exist.’ All of you, I’m speaking on your behalf: I see that there is no person and yet my Existence is Here. That which exists is only One. Without making up a notion, without making up an idea, I’ve never experienced the two-ness; I’ve only experienced Oneness.

It’s like one a piece of paper. We draw conceptual notions of them and say ‘India, Russia, Europe America’ …, but the paper is one. Then, if you pick up the notion of countries…, a child had no such notions. (A one-year old, okay. For him it’s just a piece of paper.) These appearances are still appearing. This is what I’m saying. All these appearances are still appearing but until you have the notion of other (Dhristi, Jyotima, Saroj) you don’t have these labels. It’s just one piece of paper. God’s drawing board. There is no real distinction between this example and what we seem to be doing in the world. Looking at an appearance and saying ‘That is this one, that is Dhristi, that is Gopala.’ Where is Gopala? Is there such a thing as Gopala? Is there such a thing as Dhristi? Is there such a thing as Ananta? [Shaking his head] No.

It’s just One Being.

Q: Father, because there is no one to really claim it; that’s the reason we keep excluding it. Because something comes to claim it (‘I did that’) and then we limit ourselves to that boundary because something is coming and claiming that.

A: Yes exactly. And what you say is true. But if you were to truly, truly look at it, in reality that is all you can claim. That is actually all that you can claim. The one that claims everything else is the ‘no one’. The one that claims ‘my body, my family, my relationship, my freedom, my health’ …, that is the ‘no one’. We don’t find this one. Over the years, how many times I’ve asked in Satsang ‘Who is the one that wants freedom? Produce that one. I will give it [a prize] to that one.’ We never produced that one. Because that is a ‘no one’. It doesn’t exist. The One that is truly Here is only the Self.

But I know what you mean. This false claimant of all property…, [Chuckles] (He is a lawyer, so I’m speaking like a lawyer) …, this false claimant of all property is a non-existent one. But it has a lawyer, which is the voice in your head. We check with the mind: ‘Who is your client? Who are you representing?’ It keeps saying ‘Me, me, me; you, of course, you. What do you mean: who?’ But who is that one? ‘Hmm, let’s not go there. What’s the point of asking?’[Laughter] Like that.

Many times, when I start speaking to someone who is not in satsang about the inquiry, it’s like ‘So, what do you get? What do you get if you ask who you are? Is it very peaceful? Is it very joyful? Is that what you get?’ [Chuckles] I’m like ‘Suppose you did not get anything at all; you did not find any bliss, did not find any peace, did not find any joy…, wouldn’t it still be worthwhile to find out who you are? Because everything that you seem to be doing is for this ‘you’. If you are climbing a wall, wouldn’t you want to find out for whose benefit you are climbing this wall?’

That’s why there comes a point where the longing becomes so deep that we don’t care what happens as a result of this recognition; as a result of this realization. We don’t care about the perks. We just want to know: What is Real? What is true?

Because it is worth it.

[Silence]

Even in this apparent play, if there is something that is worth it, it is the dropping of the false. Then this Truth becomes so apparent.

How to meet this God? Unavoidable. To meet this God is unavoidable because You Exist. Your Existence is Here. And You are aware of this. This Existence is the very One; the one Being which has been misunderstood as part of this leela, as part of this play, to be something just with boundaries, with birth, with death. But You are beyond all these.

As You meet YourSelf in this way, don’t take your samosa along. [Indian deep-fried food] Don’t meet yourself with interpretation, with judgment.

This is the true openness.

This is the nakedness that we speak of in Satsang.

Does this mean that the mind has to stop? No. It can come and it can go. It will give you all these offers like ‘Buy one get one free. Buy one samosa, get one free; or ten.’ [Smiles] The offers will keep changing. Just allow these offers to come and go.

So, if you feel like you have to do something then this is all that you have to do. Because in this doing itself the so-called seeming-doing of this, the concept of doer-ship itself will get extinguished.

Remain in the simple awareness of Your very Existence without any interpretation.

We come to Satsang to, presumably, to meet the Self; for the recognition of the Self. Whether we call it recognition, realization…, it’s about the Self. [Silence] So how would we meet our Self? Maybe it’s important for us to experiment with how do we meet another. How do you meet another? Before you can meet another, what all has to be there? There have to be two; you have to be there and the other has to be there. And how will you confirm that another is there?

Q: Experience. Whatever experience you may feel.

A: Okay. So, let’s break it down…, what do we mean by experience?

Q: From sensory…

A: Perception, sensory input. We perceive the seeming-other. So, in this way we can meet all sorts of other objects. Is there something which is not an object that we can meet through the senses? [Silence] And this is important because many are trying to meet themselves as an object; at least as an objective experience if not as an object itself. But we already said that ‘Before I can meet anything at all, I have to be there’. So, this ‘I’…, what sort of meeting would this be? If to meet another you need perception, you need objects, how do you meet YourSelf?

That is why Satsang is like a strange place. Everywhere else you go, you’ll be given instructions about ‘How to meet that which you are looking for.’ If you go to a travel agent, he will tell you what Visa you need to go to America; these are the steps to get in the plane to land in America. Now, in Satsang presumably we are giving instruction on how to meet YourSelf. And I am also telling you that this is the simplest thing. Because at least to go to America, you need a Visa. To meet YourSelf, you have no condition. So, in what way can we meet our Self?

Q: Just Being.

A: By just Being the Self. But is there an option, like be YourSelf …or…? [Laughing]

Q: Cancel the meeting YourSelf.

A: Cancel the meeting itself; the concept of meeting itself falls away. Now, that is True. But…, [Laughing] somehow it has seemed like we need Satsang to meet our Self. Therefore, we must be presuming that we have been meeting (or being) somebody else so far or something else so far. So, if the Self has nothing to meet, the concept of ‘meeting’ falls away. But presumably, when Sumeher started the spiritual journey with the aspiration to meet the Self, the cat undertook the journey wanting that ultimate bowl of milk. So, the clue is there; that perceptually, through perception, you can only meet an object. And you know very well by now that You are not an object. So, besides perception, what else do you have? [Silence]

Q: Intellect. Reason.

A: So, using reason; perception, concepts and a deeper sort of ‘conceptual’ is this intellectual reasoning. Now, can you meet YourSelf using one of these?

Q: Also unknown.

A: So, using perception you will see that you will meet objects. Using concepts, you can only become ideas about YourSelf. [Silence] Using reasoning, you can deny all that is not You. Or you can deny what is not your Ultimate Reality, which is just an appearance using reason and say ‘Not this, because this is changing. Not this, because this is changing. Not this…’ This is reason. What does the edge of reason tell you? …, when you run out of reason also? …, when you can’t even say ‘Not this’?

Q: [Inaudible]

A: Yes. So, if You come to this Awareness, is there a ‘you’ left who is coming to Awareness? [Q: No.] What is left?

Q: Just Awareness.

A: And yet You are still there. Not the you that you thought YourSelf to be. So, when Guruji [Sri Mooji] said ‘The most intimate You’ (let’s say the most unchanging You): What is the most unchanging You?

Q: This Awareness or this Knowingness.

A: This Awareness or this Knowingness ItSelf. How did you come to This? Did you have to use your perception? Did you have to use any concepts? Did you have to come to an intellectual conclusion? [Silence] Therefore, whether you take steps or don’t take steps, whether there is practice or no practice, can you ever be anything which is not This? [Q: No.] Is this a mental conclusion? Is it a mental conclusion or insight? [Silence]

Q: Maybe it’s both.

A: Yes. What is it reliant on? …, in the sense that if I say ‘Outside this building there is a portal’? Now for some…, maybe if a child is born and only lived inside and never stepped outside, then it would only come from a conclusion that the parents told it, that ‘There is an I portal outside’. But once you’ve stepped out, there’s a deeper-than-conceptual, perceptual experience. Now we are talking about that which is deeper than perceptual knowing: That which Knows all perception; That which is Aware of even perception.

God does not need a ‘me’. Someone was asking for practical advice. God can do all the practical stuff.

Even for the practical advice, if I was to give you the mask of personhood onto another mask of personhood, it is still the God-the-puppeteer playing these puppets, isn’t it? [Smiles]

An important point is that God is not a postion. God is not taking a position of ‘Satsang verses practical life’. Many times we get this question in Satsang: ‘All of this fine in Satsang, but what about the real world?’ These positions don’t apply to God. But it is still an idea of limitation that we have about ourselves; which means this distinction.

So, if we are meeting the world in this way, saying ‘No, no, I am just God; don’t ask me the practical things’ then that is also a limitation that we believe in about ourselves (that God is believing about ItSelf). [Smiles] Or ‘No, no, I am very practical, I am not into God’ or something like that. That is also just a notion that God is picking up about ItSelf.

That is why this position-less-ness, notion-less-ness. That’s why I was saying earlier that ‘notion-less-ness does not mean motion-less-ness.’ It does not mean ‘notion-full-ness’ also. [Smile] It means just empty of any position with regard to it. Activities can happen, or not.

First, notice this nature of the mind, how when it hears something it just believes. ‘Okay, so I am not the doer so I am meant not to do anything.’ It just believes this position. So, if I say ‘Notion-less-ness does not mean motion-less-ness’ it can feel like ‘No, no, then I have to go and live a full life’ or something. [Chuckles] No, that is also a position.

So, the beautiful way is it is to say: Just remain in Your effortless Knowingness of Your Presence. Now allow all notions to come and go.

The simple way to say it is: Simply don’t believe your next thought.

But I feel like first one is good because it clarifies something.

Simply remain with this Knowingness of Your Existence, allowing all notions to come and go.

And when notions do get picked up (because they will) then don’t pick up more notions about why you picked up. Don’t pick up any guilt or unworthiness.

It’s all gone.

In this moment, it’s all gone.

Don’t get into any post-mortems.

Just start fresh.

God is Here.

God Now.

Then you will find that your life is becoming more and more God Now, God Now …, and less and less ‘me-ow, me-ow’.

Those who are new to satsang must feel like this is pretty crazy. [Chuckles] It comes from the Satsang where I was saying ‘Every time you pick up this notion of ‘me’ then the ‘ow’ [Ouch] has to follow.

Then it might feel like there’s some possibility that I can pick up the ‘me’ and the ‘ow’ doesn’t come. But as long as we are carrying this belief in ‘me’ there will be an ‘ow’ that shakes it out of us. That is the design of this creation.

So, whether you say ‘I Am’

Or whether you say God,

Whether you say Satguru

Or you say Truth

Or Self,

the words don’t matter.

It is Your insight about this.

You are tasting your very Presence

That You are aware that You are aware is the antidote to ‘me-ow’.

So, just some practical advice. If you’re still very concerned with the life of ‘the coconut’ [the body and ‘your’ life] then you make a list of things that should happen for this shell. Make that list and put it in the Altar of your Heart or put it on the physical Altar. For those of you with a devotional temperament, it is very simple. Just label it ‘Something for Guruji To Do’.

[Silence]

There’s a joke about marriages which I keep telling my wife. [Smiles] ‘Tell a man what to do and he’ll get it done. You don’t have to nag him every six months.’ [Laughing] Now, once you’ve told Guruji what to do, he will get it done. So, don’t keep saying ‘When? When? Why? Are we there yet?’

[Silence]

And you will be surprised actually. If you playfully do this exercise, you will be surprised. You’ll look at this list after a year or two and you will either find things where you will say ‘Thank you, Guruji. Thank you, Guruji, so much for getting this done!’ or you’ll say ‘Thank you Guruji. Thank God you didn’t do this!’. [Sangha Laughing] There will rarely be anything left of which you’d say ‘Woah, why didn’t you get this done yet?’

[Silence]

In India, we often say this; we end our prayers, our invocations, with ‘Om, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.’ Why do we emphasize this so much? Because there is Shanti; there is this Peace ‘Om, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti’. ‘Om Shanti’ is a prayer for Peace. So, you say ‘Let there be Peace, Let there be Peace, Let there be Peace’ because when there is Peace, the Truth of what You Are is completely apparent.

[Silence]

One time someone came to Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi and said (with some desire, so he asked Bhagavan) ‘Can you please get this done for me?’ So, Bhagavan said ‘Here? In this body? This body has nothing special to make anything happen for anyone. But the Being that You Are finding Here has got unlimited power.’ Which Being was he speaking of? Was he speaking about some special Being that only belonged to him?

[Silence]

He was speaking of the only Being there Is; the very One whose perfume is Your Presence.

Q: It takes Satsang to make us recognize. I mean, I needed to come to Satsang (or whatever made me come) to recognize this Self, to See this.

A: Yes. Why does it feel like that? It’s because, in this one, who was the I? When you say ‘I need to come to Satsang to see this’?

Q: Because the Self or which had confused ItSelf needed, like you said, an experience. But not a logical experience. It needed me to look at you and that one thing which was not experiential (experiential but not experiential in a phenomenal way). Otherwise, it would be like sitting in the room and not going out; where you are That as One.

A: So, did you come from a place of not meeting YourSelf to a place of meeting YourSelf because you came to Satsang? Or did you realize that you have only ever met YourSelf.

Q: I realized that this ‘You’ (which is this Being) this ‘Me’ that I’ve always been…, that nothing has changed in my Beingness. There isn’t being replaced by something else. But it’s the notion which …, the ‘cathood ‘ has kind-of dissolved, which can come back. But it’s known now because you made me experience something about who I am in a very powerful way, or a way which you can’t deny what you’ve actually Seen. For a long time, Father, I would try to find myself in an objective way or even an objective experience. And then something you, in sitting in all the Satsang, you pointed that ‘I’m speaking about You, It’s You I’m talking about, not something else; the same You, who is Here Now. ‘ And that made it like the ‘cow jumping over the moon’ and all the analogies we’ve been talking about. The cutting line was that it can’t be the mind, it can’t answer. The answer can’t from that mind. And then…

A: So, the ‘cathood’ as you say or the false notion about our Self doesn’t get belief and that is what we call ‘dissolved’. Isn’t it?

Q: Doesn’t get…?

A: …believed. The notion doesn’t get believed and that is what we call dissolved. The notion has dissolved. You see?

Q: Yeah.

A: It was just a notion, but what were You always?

Q: I was always this Awareness Consciousness, only.

A: Yes.

Q: … and that Presence. When I say ‘you’ the cathood is the first one that pops up out of habit. But after looking through, I-Me, the Presence, is quite empty of notions of what I was or will be or whatever. And then, it seems to be like a mental step but it brings you back faster.

A: And that which You discovered about YourSelf or You are discovering about YourSelf, what is the qualitative nature of that discovery? Does it look like something?  Does It feel like something? (The discovery itself, the recognition itself, not the by-products.)

Q: No.

A: It doesn’t look like anything. Does it have to feel like something?

Q: No.

A: And this is the part which is so important, which all of you are recognizing now.

You keep looking for some benchmark to freedom, that something physically has to change, something emotionally has to change, something at some level has to change for me to find MySelf.

The other seeming-error that many of you are making is looking at the movement of the outer shell (the ‘coconut’ as I have been calling this) and saying that ‘This coconut has to become (or feel like or think like) the ocean.’ What I’ve been saying is that we are trying to fit this insight we are having about ourselves into this body/mind contraption in some way. But that cannot happen; because the insight you are having about YourSelf is that You are much beyond this time and space, beyond this manifest universe, and this body/mind is just a tiny aspect of this manifest universe.

So, trying to fit that which is not limited to these three dimensions anyway (four dimensions including space) is an impossibility. You are dimensionless. If I have a sheet of paper and I ask you ‘Can you fill a bucket of water into this and bring it?’ It’s two dimensions, and your container is three dimensions. You cannot fill water in a sheet of paper. In the same way, this body is an object within time and space. We cannot fit the Being, which is beyond all dimensions, into this. So, this is just an aspect of this Being. But if you say ‘See, yesterday this happened to me; I did…’ (like this) then you have again mistaken the coconut to be the ocean.

So, don’t wait for the symptoms of your freedom to start appearing in the coconut. If they have to appear, they appear. That has nothing to do with Your Reality. We have a doctor here today. You don’t have to wait for the diagnostics of the coconut to confirm that timeless, space-less Being. I not telling you about something which is a happening tomorrow or in the future. I am not telling you about something that you have to find in this spatial world. When you recognize that you Exist; the basis of this recognition…, is it contained in time and space? This Existence, when you say ‘I Am’ …, is it subject to time or space? You have already left the universe. [Chuckles]. You have left the universe. In the moment of recognition, you are not in this phenomenal realm. Then you try to bring it back to this seeming-container.

So, when we say ‘Have I got it or not? Will people start recognizing me for the Truth that I’ve discovered? Why doesn’t my family see that I am free?’ [Chuckles] (things like this) you are still talking about an identification with one aspect of the play. You are seeing that the entirety of the play is just the movement of light and sound that You, YourSelf as the projector, is making. You are the light of all things; not this body. Your light animates this entire universe and the body is just one aspect of this. Your light animates the sun; there is no sun unless You Are.

So, we have believed the mind’s version of you which is this limited version, but something has not felt at home completely with that version. Nobody ever completely feels at home with the idea of just being a body. That’s why even those who don’t come to Satsang will say things like ‘I will rest only when I am dead’ or ‘I must have had this experience in my past life’. When somebody passes away, much of their world says ‘May they rest in peace.’ But if they were just a body, who was left to rest in peace? So, nobody has completely felt at home with just this notion of being the body.

To have the darshan of your own Atma is the simplest thing in the world. In fact, you can never not have it. But it is these concepts about it, the interpretation of it, that makes it seem like you are experiencing YourSelf as something limited. As you allow YourSelf to remain notion-less, you will find that this truth of Your unlimited Existence. And that which is even beyond ‘I Am’ is completely apparent to you.

Now some of you have mistaken (are mistaking) notion-less-ness with motion-less-ness. Just one alphabet letter changed.

Notion-less-ness does not mean motion-less-ness. The world of activity, the realm of movement, can continue to appear with all its movements; with people, events, body sensations, feelings, thoughts. All these apparent activities can continue to move.

But as long as you remain notion-less, you will see that You are this Truth. Nothing could be more apparent.

Before you believe the next idea about yourself, you are already the Self. But what you will believe once you believe the idea about yourself is a notion of limitation, is an idea of limited.

What if the very Existence, the very Being, has always been the Existence of God? …, if it has always been the only Being there is? But somehow, as part of some strange play, some leela, we have taken this Existence to be the Existence of something smaller, something tinier, something limited. It is all ‘what if’ actually. [Smiles] Is just IS.

So, this Being, this Consciousness, playing as if it is limited then trying to find this great Being, is very convoluted. But this Being, which is naturally, effortlessly Here, is coming to this recognition that ‘This ‘I Am’ actually is all there is’ and ‘I am aware of even this.’ So, let’s use a metaphor. If you are trying to lose weight but you are eating one Samosa [Indian deep fried food] or one Pizza (whatever works for you wherever you are) every minute, then you say ‘But why am I not loosing weight?’ [Smile] This is like God-pretending-to-be-the-person-trying-to-find-God. Because every minute Consciousness, God, is believing in notion about himself, herself; including the notion of trying to find God. [Smiles] Now, the good part of this story is that you are at your perfect weight already. The perfect Being, the most enlightened ever, is already Your Being.

Are you still wanting to play with masks?

That is Your will, the will of Consciousness Itself.

And because You have this ultimate freedom to pretend to be whatever You like, that is why this play can seem to go on; but can never be without you picking up this mask. And when I speak of the play, I am not speaking about the appearance of this universe. I am speaking of the play where you pose as if you are just this body/mind entity.

In this moment, right now, nobody has a mask on. This the second great piece of great news.

First is that You are already God or that God is Your very Existence.

The second is that in this very moment, there is no mask of ego that you have to get rid of.

What greater gift can I give you?

The only gift I have is this good news.

[Reading from Chat]: “Father how should we be in situations which provoke aversion? For example, I don’t like bars and cigarette smoke.”

That is the beauty of what I am saying. We are not talking about the appearance of, or disappearance of, the renouncing or the picking up of any phenomena at all. We are just talking about not picking the limited notion of ‘me’.

And no appearance is capable enough to make us believe in our limitation. It is only our thoughts, only our interpretation. As we become neutral to our mind, as we become open to allow these thoughts to come and go, then naturally this outer shell (this coconut, as I call it) could flow as to stay away from cigarette smoke and bars. [Smiles]

I know some of you want to hear ‘Or not.’ [Chuckles] ‘Or not.’

What is it that Ashtavakra said? ‘I am the one solitary witness of all there is’ (I am paraphrasing) ‘forever untouched by all appearances. What is there for me to accept or renounce?’

Now, this does not sound helpful at all to the mind.  Because it only understands opposites. ‘Should I do this or not do this? Should I have a desire for it or an aversion for it?’ But neutrality, the neutrality I am speaking of, is just conceptual neutrality; not taking a conceptual position about anything.

Outwardly, it might seem like the play of differences is happening.

But inwardly, there is just silence.

I was just saying the other day, what you are finding is that (or what I am telling you is that): You are the Lord of this Universe. Every ray of light, every stream of sound, everything that hears here, every blade of grass, is in service to You.

And usually what I hear in response is that ‘But how would I feed my cat?’

That is why I keep telling you; I am like now forcing it that it’s good news. [Smiles] The good news now I have for you is this.

I know actually what the trouble also, is that the non-existent ego, that one wants to become the king of the Universe. The non-existent can never be. The only existent One is already That.

So, like the prodigal son we struggle, struggle, and struggle, to become as great as the Father.

But when we meet the Father, we realize that we are the Father.

What a funny thing. [Smiles] Such a struggle to make something which has no tangible existence into something great. And yet, all the while, being in denial of what already IS. No wonder this is called maya, the great divine delusion.

I have to expose some trick of the mind. And I am going to paraphrase a little bit from the conversations we’ve had over the last couple of days. The content of the conversation is somewhat like this: ‘Father, if I let go all notions, then without having any notion, will I continue to be a student? Without having any notion, can I continue to be a good wife? Without having any notion …, something’. And of course, the answer is: All things are completely possible in Consciousness so there is no reason why Consciousness cannot enact the role of being a good student, a good wife, if that is how Consciousness wants to play.

But notice the subtle trickery from the mind. It says ‘I am letting go of all notions.’ But actually, what I am saying is ‘I am letting go of all notions except the notion of this question: Will I be this way or not?’ That is still a notion.

Then I was saying how Guruji [Sri Mooji] talks about this fear that would come to him as he was coming to the recognition of his Reality. This fear, this notion, would come to him: ‘But you could just become like a beggar on the street. You will become a hunchback like Quasimodo [fictional character from the novel ‘The Hunchback of Notre-Dame’] and you will be begging on the street.’ These kinds of notions can still be there. And he talks about that these were let go of.

So, what I am talking about is the checker guy being very, very subtle. ‘Yes, yes, I am not going to be attached to doing of any of that, but still I am still going to keep one eye on you, okay? …, and just check how is it going.’ And that is how this manifestation of the mind (the role of the mind in the form of not posing so much as the doer so much, but now as the checker) comes. ‘Now, as I am letting go of notions, how is it going to happen for me?’ or ‘What is happening to me?’ But these are also notions.

One time I remember [Chuckles] I was speaking to someone in the sangha, on the zoom or the hangout, and she said ‘Ananta, I have been a psychotherapist for fifteen years and I am afraid to let go because I fear that I won’t be on time and I’ve never missed an appointment in fifteen years. I am so good, I am so diligent. I am so good at keeping up with what my patients need and want from me. But I am afraid of letting go.’ So, I told her that the fear is that if we let go, then God cannot run this life. He’s just going to make mess of it. [Chuckles]. So, you know what she said the next day? She said ‘I am very upset with you [Chuckles] because actually I let go of everything and for the first time in fifteen years, I was late for an appointment (or I forgot an appointment).’ [Laughs] So, God did make a mess of it.

This is what I mean by ‘the checker guy’. We let go, presumably let go, of all notions; still checking on how God is doing. [Chuckles] We let go. We surrendered all the doing. But we still presume the experiencer-ship to be ours. This is what I usually call ‘half-surrender’. We surrendered the doer-ship, but we have surrendered it conditionally. Like we’ve been hearing in the Satsang the last few weeks that ‘I trust you, I trust you Guru; Satguru, I trust you, but make sure it goes my way.’ The words are not like this, but the feeling, the intent behind the sentence seems to be that.

Notionlessly actually means: just being the simple, effortless Knowing of Your Existence, effortlessly Aware of ‘I Am’ …, without any translation, interpretation or judgment.

That is why, actually, it is enough to say ‘Don’t go with any interpretation or judgment.’ Because the first part is effortless. To be ‘with’ also is not true because You Are That. So, just to be That simple Awareness, which is even aware of your own Existence, is what is just undeniable and unavoidable. It just IS that way. It is only our belief in concepts, only our identification with ideas, which makes it feel like (seem like) there is some separation that has happened.

And notice the tricks of the mind will change. For many of you they are changing. Going from ‘What do I have to do? What do I desire?’ to ‘Now that I have given up, I have let go of these ideas about myself, how am I doing? How is God treating me?’ These are also notions.

Even ideas about ‘Am I able to remain notion-less?’ is a notion. ‘How notion-less have I been yesterday?’ [Chuckles] You don’t need that answer. You don’t need that question. What is Now is independent of yesterday. Yesterday came and went in this Now. This Now remains untouched by it.

So, all the crutches are getting thrown away now.  It’s like Guruji’s beautiful video where he says ‘You need no stick.’ He actually stood up in the middle of Satsang and he is like ‘You come to me pretending as if you need this stick. I am going to kick that stick.’ [Chuckles] You remember this one? Look it up. It says ‘Mooji, no stick’ on YouTube. It’s a very nice one. I recommend everyone should watch it. It was very alive and animated and it yet so beautifully pointing to this very same thing. You need no crutches, no ideas, no notions. And you definitely don’t need your report card. You are just troubling yourself with these reports about yourself.

This natural, effortless Awareness is just Here. It needs no stick, it needs no crutches. You are naturally Aware of this Being, this light of this world. That is why…, [Smiles] I am a strange one. Because I give you the greatest gift…, but funnily when you get that gift, you will say ‘But I always had this.’ This is my gift. Just to see what You always had; what You always were actually and You always will Be.

Soon enough, what will seem more challenging is to try and pose as if You are not that. For many of you it is already starting to happen like this. Because for many of you, many times it can happen like ‘Today I have to come up and speak to Father about something.’ Then you come up [Chuckles] and I can see the effort you’re having to make to pick up that idea you wanted to discuss; because automatically it is gone, naturally for you.

So, you are recognizing the naturalness of this. You are recognizing how much energy has gone in the play of individuality.

[Reading from Chat]: “Father, I can’t get past the grief. It is constantly there. Please help.”

Actually, you don’t have to get past the grief. You have to get past the notion that you have to get past the grief. [Silence] Grief is there. And it will remain in Consciousness only as long as it is Your will, as long as it is the will of Consciousness to be. Nothing can force Consciousness into experiencing anything at all. As the Sages have said ‘Not one blade of grass can move without the will of Consciousness.’

So, as you lose the notion that ‘I have to get past the grief’ you will discover Your own spaciousness in which grief is just another appearance. That same space in which there is grief, there is also this voice which is heard. The voice of your Presence, the voice of your intuition is also there. It might seem to come from the outer form of the Guru or it might be heard within YourSelf, but it’s all in the same space.

This, where the grief is, is also where all appearances are. You don’t have to ‘get past’ any of this. Allow all of this to come and go, as is the will of Consciousness. Because what happens usually in the play of Consciousness is that as you keep saying ‘I have to get over this, I shouldn’t have this anymore, I’m done with this; when will this go?’ All of this can actually play a part in keeping that activated, or keeping that central to your attention.

Okay, grief is there. Am I also there? Or no? If you feel that if there’s the simple space to check on this, then you will find that, as the substratum of the grief itself, that Substratum, that Presence, that Divinity will never leave you, It always has been. For this Presence, this Divinity…, nothing is in opposition to It. It is not resisting anything at all. Everything is a child of It. Nothing exists without It. And this ‘It’ is Your very Presence, Your very Existence.

[Reading from chat]: You say “Grief is continually there. I’m so tired. The Awareness is gone.”

It can feel like this, I know this. When there is strong grief and it can feel like this. But this is never true. Even when you say ‘Grief is continually there’ what you’re saying is ‘I’m just continually Aware of my grief.’ Without your Awareness, without You being Aware, nothing can be. So, for everything, the mind makes it sound like it is upside-down. Because You are Aware, there can be some content which is perceived. You are Aware of perception. Not even grief can exist without the play of this attention which leads to what we call perception and Your Awareness of this perception.

When you check: ‘Where is this grief?’ you will see that it is inside You. Then if I ask you ‘Where is this voice being heard?’ You will say ‘Also inside Me.’ All perceptions, all sensations, are within You. This You which contains all of this is just an aspect of You. You are the content of it, You the space of it, You are the perception of it and You are That which is Aware even of this perception. It is only an idea about YourSelf that is engulfed by grief.

That is a very important point, because many times even when I have asked ‘Are you aware now?’ then you say ‘I can only see this because I am aware OF something.’

How many have said that? …, ‘I can only say I am aware because I am aware OF.’

So, then you say ‘How do we know what ‘aware’ is?’

Because when we say ‘I am walking on the street’ we know what is walking and street is. We say ‘I am sitting on the chair’ because we know what sitting is and chair is.

When we say ‘Are you aware now?’ you say ‘I am aware now only because I know the [aware] OF.’

No, you know this ‘aware’ very, very primly…, but you don’t know it phenomenally.

(I wonder if these words are reaching somebody?) [Chuckles]

We are comfortable because phenomenal concepts sitting, standing and walking, you know this; sitting on the chair, standing on the road, walking on the street. We know both these concepts phenomenally.

When you ask ‘Am I aware?’ [the reply comes] ‘I might not be actually aware. But there is a chair, so that chair makes me aware.’ Something like this.

But how do you know what ‘aware’ is?

Does somebody teach you to be aware?

We were taught to stand, we were taught to sit, we were taught to walk, and we were taught to talk.

What taught us to be aware?