BOOKS BY ANANTA Welcome to Satsang with Ananta

[2.12] “I am wonderful indeed; beyond adoration. Even with a body I am One. I neither come nor go. I am everywhere at once.”

So, what is he talking about here? It can seem like the body has been made the villain in much of spirituality. Look in all the various traditions throughout the world, many times it is this ‘body, body, body’ which is the problem. But now, the recognition is: with or without the body…, even with the body, I am just One. No separation really came. It is only the apparent separation that happened; just like the snake in the rope. The appearance of the body does not lead to any separation. It is only the identification, the attachment, that makes it seem like there is a separate entity.

That’s why the Sage said: “Even with a body I am One. I neither come nor go. I am everywhere at once.” All these are clues. All these are clues.

I’ll tell you a story. Before last night, we woke up at 1:00 a.m. because there was a beeping. My daughter also woke up: ‘What’s happening?’ Every few seconds, there was a beep. We couldn’t figure it out. We went to the UPS, we checked it out; we went to all our devices. It was a beep that we just couldn’t recognize. We could recognize our phones, but it was just a beep. 1:00 a.m. everybody is up, looking for this beep. We were struggling. We went to the room, we came back to the bedroom, we looked everywhere. We couldn’t find this beep. Then we said ‘Okay, let’s pay close attention and hear the sound of it, where it’s coming from’. And the strangest thing happened. It seemed to be coming from / it seemed to be loudest when we were at the doorway. But we couldn’t tell if it was from outside the doorway or inside the doorway. We just stood at the doorway and the sound was loudest there. Then we said ‘Okay, what’s going on?’ So, like this, we just followed the sound with full concentration: Where it is coming from? Then we also discovered that it’s happening exactly on 15 seconds. Every 15 seconds, that beep is coming. So then, we set a time mark. My daughter is very fast on her phone; she set the time: ‘Next one will be at 48 seconds’. So, at 47 seconds, we became just alert for the sound, just ready for it. ‘Yes, that way! That way!’ And then we found [Chuckles] …, in our cupboard, there’s a little small toy. And that small toy, some button was being pressed by some clothes and it was beeping as a reaction to that. And it was setting like an alarm; every 15 seconds it was beeping.

So, just this vigilance, what is being pointed to? Where is the sound taking us? And you just have to let go of everything else and just follow that completely. Just like that, when the Sage is speaking, we have to just follow what he’s saying; just in that moment.

He says (very beautifully) “I neither come nor go. I am everywhere at once.” So, what can we find? See, the beep was saying ‘I neither come nor go’. What can we find that is like that…, which doesn’t come or go…, which is the one constant? In that way, you can do like a ‘neti-neti’.  [Meaning ‘not this, not this, not that’] The world appears; it comes and goes. The body, constantly changing; it comes and goes. Thought, they come and go. Emotions also come and go. All experiences come and go. And what is left? My Being, my existence.

Now, one thing we can say about it is that as long as there is a world, there is a universe, this is the constant. Everything in the universe, in the world, also comes and goes. But as long as the world appearance is there, what is the one constant? Therefore, it is this Being which is the one Reality as far as our waking state is concerned. Therefore, this Consciousness is the God, is the Deity of the waking state. (Don’t worry about the words so much.) Consciousness is there. It’s the one constant while everything else seems to be moving and changing. This Being is the one constant.

And this much is enough, in spirituality. You come to this ‘I Am That I Am’. I Am this one constant which doesn’t come and go; this Being. 41:03

Q: [Inaudible]

A: You have to check. Is it contained in location? Or is all location contained within It?

See, many times I find that I just give the answer and that takes away from your own contemplating. So…,

Does it have a location in space?

Does it have a form?
Does it have a location in time?
Duration?

All the clues are there with you.

You cannot stop Being.

Your Being is effortless.

And this Being is the one constant in this ever-changing world.

All this is there with you.

Now, you have to just look and see if this is in resonance with your own experience.

To come to this Consciousness, which we refer to as God many times, is just to follow these words. Just like we followed that beep; where is it pointing?

In the changing realm, what is it that is unchanging?

[Silence]

All the clues are there. Also, the clue that you cannot carry the money of ‘me’ on your back, because it will constantly scream in your ear. ‘No, no, not this! Why am I not getting it?’ or it’s constantly getting distracted by noise or somebody is doing or saying something, and it’s like ‘Why does this one have to be like this? Why?’ It’s constantly poking you in your ear. So, just let that one be; let it come and go. Don’t let it represent You. You See …, what is it that is unchanging? Everything else will come and go.

The Sage said earlier, “I cannot decay nor ever die, though God and all the universe should perish to the last blade of grass.”

So, can we go even beyond this…, and say ‘Even this Being is something that woke up, that wakes up, and dissolves back into the Reality of what I Am. What is it that I really Am?’

[Silence]

Q: The falling away of identity cannot be willed, what makes it happen?”

A: But first for this, you have to clarify what you mean by ‘will’? Let me clarify the question further. If there was something like free will, who would it belong to? If it belonged to a personal entity, that would mean that there is actually a personal identity which came into existence. If no person has ever come into existence, can it ever have anything, including will?

That which doesn’t exist…, it’s like saying ‘Okay, does the blue cat in this room want some milk? Does the blue cat in this room want some milk?’ [Chuckles] You will say ‘There is no blue cat’. You see? Like that. So, how can that blue cat have the will? Does the blue cat want to go outside the room? What is the will of the blue cat? [Chuckles] You would say ‘What’s he talking about? There is no such thing’. In the same way, when we say ‘Does the person have some will?’ we have to first find if there is such a thing as ‘a person’. Or is it just an idea, like the blue cat?

This was the first option: Who could have will? So, when we say it cannot be will, then we actually might mean that yes, it cannot be will from a personal perspective. Why? Because no person ever actually came into existence. There is no such entity here. Then you might say ‘Okay, it cannot be will’. From which perspective? What is the next perspective you can say? The will of Consciousness.

Now, everything (as you have Seen) happens in the light of this Consciousness. When ‘I Am’ appears [in the waking and dream state] then this apparent play appears and all the movements in this apparent play happen. Now, all of this is what? We can say it is the will of Consciousness.

Why the play happens cannot be defined. Even this is not an answer which matches up to some standard of Truth…, that everything is the will of Consciousness. We say it because we find only Consciousness is here. For all that is happening (because we see the design and the pattern in everything that is happening) we say ‘Who is the doer of this? It must be Consciousness. Who must be willing it? Must be Consciousness’.

That’s why surrender works. When we say ‘Tvam karta, Tvam bhogta’ (I am not the doer nor the experiencer) You (God, or Guru, Consciousness) is the One Doer and the One Experiencer. So, from that perspective we can say ‘Everything is the will of Consciousness’. Therefore, even the picking up and the dropping both must be just the will of Consciousness. That’s why Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] said ‘Everything is Grace’. There is nothing, not a blade of grass, which moves unless it is the will of Consciousness, the play of Consciousness.

Now, there is a third perspective that also you can take. You can say that ‘My truest position is the Absolute; That which sees that even this Consciousness, this Being, this Existence, is just an aspect of MySelf’. But my truer position is That which is aware of even this. I witness my Being, I am aware of my Being. This ‘I’ is completely so pure, so unconcerned about even the concept of will, yet everything comes from within It.

So, will does not apply at the personal level and does not apply at the Absolute level. It only applies at this level, which is the level of Consciousness.

So, what makes it happen…, is That which makes everything happen, which is Consciousness Itself. It makes everything happen to whom? To Itself. Nobody else has been found here. Except someone once said (and she also didn’t present ‘the person’…, she said that it is a possibility) that ‘One day I might actually find this person and bring him to you’. Because there is a thousand-dollar cash prize for any of you who can present a person to me and say ‘Here, here it is! Here is the person!’ [Chuckles] You remember this? [Turning to look at someone in the room] You said this to me one day. You always have a fresh perspective on things. She said ‘Okay, okay fine. I don’t find it now; okay fine. But can you conclusively say that no science, nobody, will ever discover a person?’ [Chuckling] I enjoyed that very much, that’s why it stayed with me.

Basically, the point is that this is a mythical entity, just like the blue cat. Consciousness has given Itself the power to believe Itself to be something which is a bundle of concepts, with ideas about itself and its imitations and what it wants. This is the way Consciousness is playing until Consciousness is done with the play.

It mostly does not like abrupt endings to movies; like we don’t like abrupt endings to movies. Have you gone to these Indie movies? Sometimes, you go to them and something is just about to happen, and they end! That is not satisfying. So, when It is coming to the end of the movie, also It is playing it out. It’s coming to Satsang. It’s having insights. It’s playing in this way. It’s extracting the juice from this process. It extracted all the juice of getting deluded. Now it is extracting all the juice out of this process of coming out of delusion (including its apparent frustrations, day by day saying ‘Why don’t I get it?’)

All of it is the play of this One because no person has ever really existed.

Some are new in satsang, so I can help them with a few pointers. Sometimes the question of existence, of Being itself, can seem a bit confusing. So, just to make it a little clearer what we are talking about, I ask you: ‘Can you stop being?’

Can you stop being? Let’s try it. Try to not be.

When you try to not be, you see that ‘What is he saying? I just exist. I can’t help my existence’.

(The mind will come with some answers: ‘Okay, when I go to sleep, or when I die…’ We are not talking about the future.)

Just Now, can you not be?

Can you not exist?

So, this existence: is it effortful or effortless?

To exist is effortless.

So, this effortless existence becomes so apparent when I reverse the question. Because if I ask you ‘Can you find your Being? Find this ‘I Am’?’ …, it can seem a bit confusing. It was confusing here also.

But when I say ‘Can you not be? Just don’t be. For a second, don’t be. Try not to be’.

[You realize] ‘I can’t help it. I just AM’.

This. This existence. Who is aware of this?

It is undeniable that it is ‘I’ that is aware.

But it is not (like Ashtavakra said) the small-minded ‘I’.

Which ‘I’ is this one, that is aware even of existence?

With no inferences, with no conceptual knowledge, if you were to just look…, with no spiritual concepts also, nothing…, empty of everything that we think we know, empty of all conclusions: just rely on your inner Seeing…., what is aware of my Being, of my existence?

Then these words of Janaka will make complete sense. “I am wonderful indeed; beyond adoration. I cannot decay nor ever die, though God and all the universe should perish to the last blade of grass.”

Here are some of the most beautiful words. And I remember in the retreat when we shared these then these became the words that everybody kept repeating, even after the retreat for many day, where Janaka said:

[2.11] “I am wonderful indeed; beyond adoration. I cannot decay nor ever die, though God and all the universe should perish to the last blade of grass.”

Now, who can speak like this? “I am wonderful indeed; beyond adoration.” Now, this, even in the height of our arrogance, we cannot speak like this. It must be something which is greater than any human arrogance, because we can never say “I am wonderful indeed; beyond adoration.” Then later, he says, “…though God and all the universe should perish to the last blade of grass.” So, God and the universe perishes. I still remain. So, this is the impersonal ‘I’ that is being spoken about.

So wonderful this I is (You are) beyond any adoration, beyond any praise, You are that magnificent that nothing phenomenal can really touch Your Reality. You are so beyond any of this. Janaka is coming to this recognition for himself: “I am wonderful indeed; beyond adoration.” Even if (as many teachers have said…, at least in our lineage, these things are very popular to say; they might seem too strong for other teachers) … even if the universe burns, with everything in it, I remain untouched. Now, is this some sort of lack of compassion? Is it a lack of love? It’s not. It’s just speaking from the Reality of the Self which remains untouched no matter what the content of the play is. Once you see YourSelf to be beyond these states (waking, dreaming, sleep, turiya) that ‘I’ is not touched by any of these states. This is Your discovery. This is Your recognition. You don’t have to report ‘I am wonderful indeed’ (although I like to hear it very much).

Q: [Inaudible]

A: Coming to the world is our daily experience actually. Every day we have the experience that something here tires of this phenomenal play and then the world vanishes. So, the state changes and it could be that another world appears. Then we can call this dream state for that waking state or that a dream state for this a waking state. It doesn’t really matter.

So, the fact is (at least this much we can agree on) that the experience of a phenomenal appearance also ultimately is coming and going. You see? It is not a constant. So, what is the definition of Reality that we described in the first meeting? We said: That which remains unchanging and is direct experience. So, it does not at least conform to that definition of Reality.

So, without getting into a debate about sleep state and whether the body is still there…, and whether a dream is just a dream but this waking state is different; let’s not get into any of that for today although I enjoy also that sometimes. But for today, not getting into that…, at least we can agree that anything phenomenal is coming and going. In fact, the entire phenomenal experience and the substratum of it is also coming and going. There is something called deep sleep, dreamless sleep, in which no phenomenal experience is there. Therefore, if our definition of Reality is that it must be something which is unchanging, then it does not apply to that. So, let’s meet at this point and then see if the phenomenal experience does not conform to this definition of Reality, is there something that does?

Is there something that remains unchanging irrespective of whether there is phenomenon or not?

Is there something which is here, irrespective of the state, whether it is waking or not?

That which saw what happened when you woke up, which one is That one?

[Someone comes into the room]

What we were saying is that at least this much there must be agreement on, that if our definition of Reality is that which is unchanging, then this entire phenomenal experience also cannot be described as Reality. So, is there something from our direct experience that we have seen to be unchanging? And we came to this point where we were saying ‘That which saw that something happened and suddenly ‘I Am’ came into existence…, that which we call the waking state came after this. First ‘I Am’. There is never an experience of a world without this sense of me, of existence.

But who saw this transition?

What is this constant witness that is aware of both sleep state and waking state?

Who is the witness of all phenomena right now?

If we are able to rest in this contemplation for some time, without picking up any notion of anything at all, then you are very, very open to the direct recognition of the Self. Let’s remove ‘if’. You ARE ready for this contemplation.

Who is it that witnesses all phenomena?

Is That Itself phenomenal?

Remain in this contemplation without picking up an inference, any notion of anything, any judgment, no past, not future; nothing at all.

[Silence]

What to do with the mind when it comes with its interpretations, conclusions, proclamations? Nothing. Just let it come and go. What witnesses even that?

[Long silence]

Whatever might be the content of the world, you are the witness of it.

What witnesses this witness?

Or, as my Master [Mooji] says (his piranha question): Can the perceived be perceived?

[Silence]

That which is aware of even your existence…

[Silence]

~ ~ ~

Reading from the Ashtavakra Gita, Translation by Bart Marshall

http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Ashtavakra-Gita-ebook.pdf

Continuing the Ashtavakra Gita, Chapter 2. Janaka says:

[2.9] “The mirage of universe appears in Me as silver appears in mother-of-pearl, as a snake appears in a rope, as water appears on a desert horizon.”

[2.10] “As a pot returns to clay, a wave to water, a bracelet to gold, so will the universe return to Me.”

[2.11] “I am wonderful indeed; beyond adoration. I cannot decay nor ever die, though God and all the universe should perish to the last blade of grass.”

[2.12] “I am wonderful indeed; beyond adoration. Even with a body I am One. I neither come nor go. I am everywhere at once.”

[2.13] “I am wonderful indeed; beyond adoration. I am astounded at my powers. The universe appears within me but I do not touch it.”

[2.14] “I am wonderful indeed; beyond adoration. I am everything thought or spoken, and have nothing.”

[2.15] “In Reality, knowledge, the knower, and the knowable do not exist. I am the transparent Self in which (through ignorance) they appear.”

Very nice. This is Janaka continuing, after he comes to the recognition of his Reality. He’s sharing from there.

[Reading 2.9] “The mirage of universe appears in Me as silver appears in mother-of-pearl, as a snake appears in a rope, as water appears on a desert horizon.”

So, this mirage of the universe appearing in You…, this also is often misunderstood. It feels like everything is appearing within me; that I have a limited boundary, so all of this is happening within my body or within my mind. But it is not that.

What is the Me within which everything is appearing? What is this space?

And everything that the Sage is saying must be verifiable. You must be able to check that as Your reality, Right Now. So, this ‘Everything is appearing within Me’ …, it can be very much a struggle because they can feel like ‘But I am here and you are there’ or ‘I am here and the world is there’. But suppose you did not have this boundary of ‘This is where I am’? Suppose this boundary was just made up? Suppose, till it becomes your Seeing (or as we are contemplating this verse) just See: what if these sensations that we call the body was not really a boundary to anyone? [Silence]

It’s just another set of appearances within the one ocean of Consciousness. When does all of this appear anyway? When does the world appear to you? In the waking state, when we wake up. So then, when we wake up, what wakes up? What is it that wakes up? The sense that I exist. I Am, I exist. When I wake up, when ‘I Am’ wakes up…, this ‘I Am’ is Consciousness.

We don’t need to make a distinction between any states. If there are phenomena appearing, then ‘I Am’ must exist; our existence is there. Have you ever had a phenomenal experience without Your existence, without You existing? …[Silence]…So, this sense ‘I Am’ wakes up. And a multitude of sensations, energies; they also start to appear.

Now, within these energies, there are two energies, two sets of energies. One is these energy constructs that we call the body; which is what? A set of sensations that we experience. We feel that they are so intimate. And the other is the visual sensations, the visual perceptions, that we see as the body. This we call the body.

Now, there’s another energy construct which is like a voice which is speaking; the voice in our heads which we call the mind. Now, without listening to what this voice is saying, even the distinction that ‘I am this body’ is not made. … [Silence]… It is just a set of sensations which I experience where there is no distinction between inner and outer.

Then, as the voice of the mind comes and it is telling you that you are ‘something’. What does it define as this ‘something’? ‘You are this body’. …[Silence]… ‘I am your voice’.

Just like this. …[Silence]…

So, within this entire set of sensations, the mind takes a particular group of them and says ‘This defines you’. Not this voice which seems to come from here [points to head] but also everyone around; parents, relatives, everyone is saying that this is your boundary which is defining that ‘This is you’.

Then, with this conditioning, what happens then is that we are also conditioned to believe that the movement is happening through some volition. Are we going too far? Just stick that also into your contemplation as we look. And you’ll notice for yourself now how the body is moving. You’re blinking, your head might be moving, your hand might be moving. But we are conditioned to believe that this is something that I am doing; that individually you are limited to this and that you are the doer of these movements. Not every moment; limited again…, you are the doer of these movements alone. And that’s how duality comes: ‘You are a limited entity and you are responsible only for the movement of this particular appearance called the body’. But without conditioning you will see that we don’t have this interpretation, we don’t have this judgment. Everything is just happening, moving in its own way. Whether we call it ‘happening on its own’ or ‘happening as the will of Consciousness or God’ it’s just terminology.

So, “The mirage of universe appears in Me as silver appears in mother-of-pearl, as a snake appears in a rope, as water appears on a desert horizon.”

We’ve talked about this earlier in great detail, where it is just an apparent separation, it is just an apparent existence. Nothing really happened. Just as when there is not enough light, it can seem like there is a snake but actually it is just a rope. Therefore, it can seem like there is a world, but actually, there is just Consciousness.

This is what the Sage is saying. And again, you don’t have to stress about these. If these insights are not seeming natural to you, just stay with your inquiry of who you are and let these become apparent to you. Because through conceptualizing and through reasoning, we will not come to this. These, at best, can point you to your own inner Seeing, and then these will become your own reports, your own testimony, just like they became Janaka’s…, Janaka’s testimony.

[2.10] Janaka says: “As a pot returns to clay, a wave to water, a bracelet to gold, so will the universe return to Me.”

So, when does the universe go away? When the sleep state comes. There is no phenomenal experience, phenomenal appearance. And yet, who is sleeping? You are. So, therefore, there must be something about you at least that is not phenomenal alone; something about you which is non-phenomenal.

Now, does that one go away? That which Sees that there is nothing in sleep and a universe, a world, in waking; does that one change in any way?

If you are carrying a monkey of a ‘me’ on your back, then you cannot pass through these insights…, you cannot experience the words as pointings to YourSelf. Because the most beautiful scripture might be shared, but your mind might still be going ‘What’s in it for me…, what’s in it for me…, what’s happening to me?’ This ‘me’ …, when we carry it on our backs, then the words of Ashtavakra will sound like just trouble actually. You have to ‘taste’ them from another space.

~ ~ ~

Reading from the Ashtavakra Gita, Translation by Bart Marshall

http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Ashtavakra-Gita-ebook.pdf

Q: Namaste Father, when the rubber hits the road, the tire bursts.

A: [Chuckles] Yes, my dear. What to do? The rubber hits the road, the tire bursts; what to do? The reason we have Satsang every day, we collect in this way, we sing Guruji’s aarti, we do the Ram chanting, is because I know when this rubber is hitting the road, it can feel like so much suffering can happen. So, I can just really remind you that you are not the tire which is bursting; you are the witness of that. But when it feels like you are the tire which is bursting, you are the tire which is hitting the road in this strong way, I know that when it strongly happens then it feels like it is true. That is why having the gift of a Master in one’s life is the best gift that we can have.

It’s just like a child, when you scrape your knees. The Master will tell you that ‘Everything will be all right. You are beyond this’. Like I used to tell my children that ‘Let me see how many minutes this will last’. I would take a bet with my daughter when she was in some sort of pain. I would say ‘Okay, Beta, I will bet with you that in 15 minutes you won’t even remember which hand was paining’. So now, this is also a reminder for you to see that [even though] the rubber is hitting the road, the tire seems to be bursting, that this will not last. Satguru’s Presence WILL last.

When these times of suffering they come, it can feel like ‘But I have suffered forever and you say it can’t last’. You see? But this is not a true report. Because although moments of suffering will come and go (awful, sometimes) the fact is that the contrast has always been tasted. The gift of Satsang has been available to you in this life. You’ve had the joy of being also in the physical presence of Guruji [Mooji]. How many have had this gift in their Life? So, in this time which the mind can say has only been full of suffering, the greatest gifts have also come to you.

In this realm of contrast, everything is tasted but it is this suffering which seems to be remembered the most, or noticed the most. When the rubber hits the road, that which has been truly digested comes to our aid, it seems. That’s why my advice to you has always been (from the beginning actually) that ‘Please don’t play with any new concepts; don’t play with any new contemplations also (for you)’. Because there is only one thing which is the constant (in many of our lives) which is the Divine Presence of the Master.

I’m bound to the feet of the Master like a child who hangs on the mother’s womb when it is scared. And sooner or later you will come to this discovery that everything has always been taken care of.

Q: That is what Papaji would say: ‘No effort’. Any effort is exactly the same as what you are saying. Any effort is the same wave of either doing or not doing. It is not me.

A: It is tricky actually. I discovered also in the last many years that there is no one instruction that just works. I wish there was because then I could just repeat that all the time.

Now what happens is that even in something like no doing, no effort, the mind can even take that on (it is so tricky) and say ‘Ah, see? Now he is asking me to check on what is here now, but I am not the doer, I can’t make that effort’. So, that voice of limitation can take on even the most pristine of pointings and corrupt it in its game. So, sometimes the Master has to say ‘Yes, drop all effort’.

Let us take Papaji’s example: Sometime the Master said ‘No effort, drop the search, drop it; nothing at all’. On the other hand, he said ‘Vigilance till my dying breath’. Now, if you hear both of these together you are confused. ‘Right, okay. Now, vigilance till my dying breath but what happened to the no effort?’

So, because the point is to get to this neutrality of no movement (neither left nor right, no looking up or down) sometimes the Master gives one back from this side, sometimes the Master gives one back from that side. That is why the words of satsang can seem to be so much full of contradiction.

We got used to this in school, etc., to a linear truth, to a truth which will go in a straight line and have various gradations and will ultimately get to the ultimate truth through that. In satsang, it is all round, round; there is no straight line.

How to point you to where you are already? I have to take one step left and one step right because you don’t believe me when I say You Are That Already.  [Laughs] So, the pointing of satsang will always be like this. You will always end up where you started (unfortunately, or fortunately) [Chuckles] because to discover YourSelf…., You, Right Now…, is enough. Not one step, not one intention, not one movement is needed.

And yet, even to check this, it can seem for some like effort. That is why Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi said (and Papaji also said) that if it feels like to come to effortlessness, if it feels like it is a bit of effort, then make that effort.

Again, it can sound contradictory because You Are That. You have not left the destination. But then with this pointing, we are not falling into the mind trick. Because Advaita can also give the ego the biggest defenses for itself. It can put up the biggest barriers to our insight, to our checking about what we are, because of the ‘level confusion’ that can be there.

What is happening is we are coming to this beautiful ‘I don’t know’. If somebody says ‘Ananta, can you tell me how to bring people to enlightenment, how to bring people to freedom?’ I have to say I don’t know. It is just something that happens when in this play of this resonance, this meeting…, and some words just arise from here that seem to point this one on what needs to be pointed to. And yet the next questioner would come and the guidance can be exactly the opposite of that. Because there is no answer in that way. There is also no truth in that way. So, it can seem like we are completely powerless and we don’t know. But I have discovered that it is the most beautiful. Because that which we know mentally is like a defense. When this wall is not there then nothing can be attacked. There is no strategy template plan for freedom, ultimately.

What plan does the drop in the ocean need to become the ocean? We need the discovery that there was never an individual drop anyway; it has always been one ocean.

I have done this often and it works. Many of us (whether we say it out loud or not) we have this desire to share satsang.  So, I say ‘Okay, we have this desire to share satsang and all you have to so is pretend as if you are talking to a drop which is claiming that it wants to get back in the ocean, but it is already the ocean. Whatever you tell the drop is the words of satsang:

See that you already Are That.

See that you don’t have to go anywhere.

Wee that all the ups and downs are happening on their own, you are not doing them.

It is as simple as that.

Those that have come to this Seeing that it is all this One, one Being playing in all various aspects…, they also may be left with the memory of how it played out before this insight was so clear, so then they can guide others because they remember that there was a time that all of this was believed here also.

Q: So beautiful, thank you Father

[The light in the room switches on] Enlightenment? [Laughter]

So, what is the meaning of an enlightenment experience? It would be just like this. And you have it and you say ‘Okay, that was it’. No experience is greater than YourSelf. I feel like the stories of the past do a great dis-service also because they make everything centered around this one experience. Like as if an experience itself makes us the Self and before that we are not the Self.

If I was to say ‘First, you lose YourSelf. Lose YourSelf and then come to me and ask about the Self. Would you be able to do this project? Just don’t ‘Be’. Don’t be YourSelf.

So, what is enlightenment? The recognition of the Self and the dropping of the false conditioning of the individuality. Isn’t it?

So, I’m saying truly lose the Self and then come to me looking for the Self. Who can do it? Don’t exist! I say ‘Can you stop being?’ And nobody really…, (maybe one or two in a different way answered that they can) but actually nobody can say this.

This is the treasure in… [Inaudible] (I’m really bad in reproducing some of these old dialects.) [Inaudible]… [speaks in Hindi] …, which basically means ‘We have it’. [Inaudible] We’re looking everywhere for it. We’re not looking in our own [Inaudible] but it’s already here.

It’s because we’re looking for it as if it can be something objective. The Self is the only discovery which we will make which is not objective. It is not phenomenal, as if you will find an object. There are many who have had a very sober insight into what they are and they’re very peaceful, very beautiful Lights. And there are many who have had great awakening experiences and lots of proclamations and then got caught up in great specialness and spiritual arrogance. Doesn’t matter. It’s not about spiritual arrogance. Because it is that which witnesses all things. It is not going anywhere.

Can you not be aware?

What is missing? You have to say honestly…, what is missing?

Q: Then the recognition that I’m caught up in thought comes much later.

A: Yes. That much is enough. Because another thought will come and say ‘When it happens to you, you are not aware enough or attentive enough.’ But if later, all that you can say is that ‘I got caught up in thought’…, then it is enough. There is space to check; you check. It is enough.

As you come to satsang, you will find…, (Okay, again, I don’t want to give you a benchmark again) … but you get the drift, isn’t it? You see, what happens is that something strong will come, something happens in the external environment, some feelings start to come, some thoughts come and we get caught up in them. Now, all that is passed. But the mind still has one more trump card in its hand, saying ‘See? You got caught up in that stuff’. Now we are getting caught up in that thought that we got caught up.

So, in the ‘tray’…, in the conveyor belt of thoughts [Referring to his analogy of the restaurant where the food comes around on a conveyor belt and you choose what you want and let the rest go by] …, these last ones are the ones that are ‘desserts’. Okay? They have the most calories…., because them make conclusions about yourself. They make conclusions about at what level of spirituality you are; how free you are. They make benchmarks about how you are. What happened in the moment just happened. But when we buy these ideas, then we can feel like ‘Oh, I’m still not there yet; I get so caught up’. All of these are just thoughts. And they have more calorie value because they are filled to the brim with identity.

So, as our Master [Mooji] says, leave our existence to existence; hand it over. Even at times if this body plays in a certain way; plays as if it is angry, as if it is frustrated, as if it is guilty…, it’s okay. When you have the space to check on Who You Are, just See…, if you are untouched by any of this movement. That much is enough.

Keep coming to satsang and whenever you have the space to, just check on this. You see, the mind will keep you caught up in the past like this; it will keep making report cards about yourself. That’s what I call it my arch-nemesis: the checker guy…, [Chuckles] checking and reporting because that’s the way we’ve been conditioned to be; in school, college, medical college. All our reporting has based like this, isn’t it? ‘Today, you were a very good boy because you did all your assignments and…’ [Chuckles] The mind feels like this: ‘You’re still getting caught up in your thoughts. That is also a thought.

We’ll leave this one to start with. It is enough. You say ‘The recognition that I am caught up in my thoughts comes much later’. This ‘much later’ also is enough. For me, it is enough. Don’t make yourself guilty about anything. Don’t make yourself unworthy about anything.

Q: Namaste Father, Namaste everybody. Actually, you were talking about ‘you are not the doer’ and I am in a phase where whatever question arises in my head, about spirituality or whatever, even in my daily life (which is included, of course) all answers are ‘I don’t know’. All of them. Of course, my persona, my identity, is very affected by that because while I am evoking it, it rises some emotions. But I guess this is very new for me to not know, really not know; to a point where even during the day I don’t know what I want to do. [Laughs] So, at the beginning when I noticed this, it was like ‘Okay, let it go, this is part of the play apparently’. But now this has been like two, three weeks and now I am a bit starting to freak out because it has been like a little while for me. But there is rest and cuts. It is like a very quick flick. [Indicating flickering back and forth] I don’t know how to explain.

A: That is alright. I enjoy this question very much. So, what can happen is that even ‘not- knowing’ we can make that a position. So, there is knowing, like ‘I know a lot of things’ and now ‘I don’t know a lot of things’. So, the picking up of mental concepts AND the not having mental concept. But very subtly even this can become a position that ‘Now I have the position where I don’t know anything’.

Even in this report, the ‘I’ that we are talking about is a limited entity; because that ‘I’ has this particular life, and that ‘I’ is freaking out a little bit; all of these things are happening to a limited entity. So, again (whether we can see it yet or not) even the idea that ‘I don’t know anything’ is a knowing that ‘I don’t know anything now, so now what is going to happen to my life?’

So, not even this we can know. And the mind cannot do this. (I am speaking to you as Consciousness Itself, my own Being): not even this we can know that ‘I don’t know anything’. Because the mind can only operate in these opposites: knowing something and not-knowing. And both can become positions; doer or not-doer, desirer or not-desirer, sufferer or not-sufferer.

What we are talking about is That which is at the background of both of these positions. You see? Even the not-knowingness can become like a phenomenal not-knowingness that ‘I know now that I know nothing and let me now see what happens to my life’. But we don’t know actually what is happening to our life; what was going to be the outcome of this mental forgetting and not knowing any concept, we actually don’t know really.

So, don’t even make a conclusion about how life is turning out because of that. And don’t make even the not-knowing into a position. Don’t go from a ‘knower’ into a ‘not-knower’ because you will become like Socrates. There is Socrates saying that ‘I don’t know anything at all’. Yet, there can be a conceptual holding onto the concept of not-knowing.

So, empty of the concept of mental knowingness of any sort; like if you don’t have a confusion about your knowingness; you don’t know whether you know or don’t know [Laugh]. Because, subtle as it might be even this can become like a position where we come into a restaurant (I am just taking a silly example, don’t mind, just stretching it, exaggerating it to make the point) so, you might go to the restaurant and the server gives a menu and you say ‘Ah, actually I don’t know what I want’. And if that happens it is fine. But sometimes even these things can happen from a position, like ‘I have to prove to myself or to the rest of the world that I don’t know anything’ or ‘I actually have become like this, that I [your name] now don’t know anything’. But we are not talking about ‘I [your name]’. I am saying that: not even this. Like you don’t know whether you know or don’t know. How is that? So, you can’t even take a positon about knowing or not-knowing.

It can be very tricky for the mind because the mind will say ‘So, then what now?  I am completely confused. Either do I know or don’t know?’ It is neither. Even about doership; are you the doer or not the doer? Neither. The question doesn’t apply to You. The one that could be the presumable doer or not doer doesn’t exist. And the One that Is (is the One Light of Consciousness) is the one doer; one doer, one experiencer. So, we cannot have a mental answer for any of these questions.

I hope some of it got through because I have to by-pass the mind completely in these kinds of answers. I have to by-pass the mind completely because the mind only knows opposites: either I know or I don’t know; either I am the doer or I am not the doer. If I say you are neither, the mind says ‘But that doesn’t help’. It doesn’t help the mind. But it triggers a recognition about something later, something deeper that You Are, which is beyond this play of opposites.

Otherwise, very quickly, in any position that we take, even if it is based on the words that we hear in satsang, any position that you take then can become a position that tries to hold on to something. And it can become like this where you say ‘Oh, I seem to be losing control of my life and some strange things have started to happen to me’. Even in all of these reports, the me is still the ‘I’ which is now relying on the not-knowing position. But You are not that. That is why Ashtavakra, all the Sages, instruct to take a step back even from this. Who is watching this apparent knowing and not knowing?

Something clearer in that? You can say something. I would like hear what you say.

Q: Yeah. Thank you for the description. It appears clear, but still on the level of the mind. While you were explaining it was very clear. But now I guess I need to chew on what you just said. So, of course I am aware that saying ‘I don’t know’ is already the fact that I am aware that I don’t know. But as you were saying it, actually I am hanging…, I am clinging to this idea of ‘I don’t know’ in a way because ‘Oh! So, now it is changing, now it is different’. And actually, it is different but it is not. [Laughs] It’s not. I just realized that it’s not different. It is the same; just the same. This is just what I understand so far but I hope the understanding will go deeper and deeper.

A: This is very good. I am very happy with the sharing of this; something which is so subtle and there already seems to be a resonance with that. I am very happy with this report.

Q: Ah, thank you very much for helping. Thank you very, very much. [Big smile]

A: I feel very happy because many times in satsang I could say that we come from a ‘knowing’ to a ‘not-knowing’. But even in this pointing, there can be this seed of opposition; a reference point to ourself which can be limited. That is why it is just best to … (how to say even this?) …to That not-knowing…, which doesn’t know anything about knowing and not-knowing. That which is not positional, not a reference that we can make about ourself.

Someone says ‘You know something or you do not?’ I don’t know. And at some moment, you say ‘Yes, I know this’ or ‘I don’t know this’. You don’t know how. And this is a simple allowing of life to unfold as it is, no position, no reference to ourself. This is full openness; emptiness beyond the concept of knowing/not-knowing, empty/full.

I am always very happy to receive questions like this. Always very happy to receive questions like this because these can be the very confusing, very subtle points…, that it can seem like ‘Yes isn’t this what all the Teachers are pointing to?  Don’t know anything. And now I feel like I don’t know anything and my life is becoming a bit wild. What is going on?’ Even this beautiful pointing of not knowing anything can be planted the seed of: ‘I’ (Whose? ‘My’ life.)

It is said ‘Leave even this one that doesn’t know’. ‘Left the one who knew, left the one who doesn’t know’. Both are left; both positions gone and we don’t know whether we know or don’t know. And like I said, the mind cannot fathom this. It can only operate in these opposites. Something does a by-pass, something goes deeper. Like this.

A:  Okay, we were playing ‘I am Awareness, but…’ [A ‘fill in the blank’ game] I am Awareness but…, or I am Self but…

Q: [Inaudible]

A:  She says, “I am Awareness but sometimes I am unaware of the Awareness.”

At that time, what happens?

Q: [Inaudible]

A:  You are just with the thoughts, or what you might be implying is lost in thought; just one with the thoughts. Now, when you are lost in the thought or gone with the thoughts, that means the attention is with the thoughts? Now, who is the witness of this happening?

Q: [Inaudible]

A:  But even to say that this happens… [Waving his hand]

Q: [Inaudible]

A:  You forget about awareness, yes, but maybe you only forget about the concept of awareness. Just give me two minutes to explain this. You say there are times where it’s so clear ‘I am Awareness. There are other times I am so caught up in my thoughts that Awareness is all forgotten, out the window’. [Chuckles] Even during that time, there is a witness of the play of you. [Her name]

Q: [Inaudible]

A:  Yes, yes, but you are not saying that the rest of the time is a blank. You are saying that ‘The rest of the time I am lost in my thought’. So, even to see that ‘I am lost in my thought’ needs awareness. So, this substratum is not changing actually. It is the play of Consciousness which is sometimes playing as if it is unaffected, it is just Awareness; and sometimes playing as if it is you. [Her name] But this substratum didn’t go anywhere. That is You; no matter what is happening at the surface. So, if the entire ocean is You (sometimes high tide, sometimes low tide, sometimes just serene) as long as you keep identifying yourself with the surface it might feel like the ups and downs are still happening. Can you identify YourSelf as the witness of these ups and downs? Whether it is up or down, in reality You don’t change. That is what I am trying to say.

If you had said, for example, that ‘I am Awareness, but am now feeling (or others telling me) that there are times when I am unawareness but I have never witnessed that time’ …, you are not saying that, you are saying ‘I can see that I get lost in my thoughts, I get caught up in my identity and then awareness seems to go for a toss’. But even this, you can only say because you are aware of these times.

Whatever the play might be (I might say something which you completely disagree with right now) but if I say something that makes you very angry, then would it be that awareness went away? Or just that the outward play of the whole play of anger coming and thoughts being believed? All of that might change; but at the core of it your reality remains unchanged. So, that itself gives us a lot of reassurance. Otherwise, it can feel like ‘I am on this wave sometimes, it’s so calm and serene and just Awareness unflappable; and sometimes I get so caught up in this head’.

So, I am asking you to just step back from that play of up and down. Don’t judge yourself on that basis. Judge yourself on the basis of the witness who witnesses both the ups and the downs. What happens to that one? It stays; unchanging. Nothing has happened.

So then, how the mind operates is this play of opposites. It says: ‘This was this; then the opposite of that is this. [Holds two fists meeting each other] And then you have to become completely, completely like this; and then you can say that you are free’.

I am actually not worried about what is happening at the surface level. Many of the Sages actually used to exhibit a lot of anger, and they have even cursed (I have taken examples). They have even been responsible for the deaths of thousands of beings in their seeming anger (of course, an overall Grace, but that’s for another satsang). But it is not the expression of all of this, these ups and downs of our human emotions or not, which is creating a bench mark about your reality.

Q: Sometimes, you know that you and you’ve got that space and you just do what you have to do. It just feels very authentic. Sometimes, you know you’re aware and sometimes it doesn’t feel like it’s playing out from that authenticity. Now, when that happens, then suddenly there is a doubt; you are all over the place, you are not…

A:  Yes. But the best news is always that in every moment, when you are even able to check like this and you have the space for this, what do you find yourself to be?

Q: This space.

A:  So, it is like the sun coming from the East or West thing. We can have this idea that ‘When I am not looking then maybe the sun comes from the West’. But once you see that all of this is a movement of Consciousness which then we take on as if I am a personally responsible for how these things are turning out. Then we take on the idea of a limited identity who has a certain doership. So, if you take on the responsibility of always being the personification of Being, it is too much burden for anyone to carry. You don’t have to do that. You don’t bother with it at all. (I know it sounds strange to come to satsang and I am saying don’t make the effort to be authentic to that Being that you discover. Let the world play out as it is playing (including this body/mind functioning) and then you will see that automatically… (and don’t even make that a bench mark. If you want, I won’t say it.) [Chuckles]

Q: Father, don’t say, don’t say…

A: [Laughs] …because it becomes a bench mark

Q: Yes. [Inaudible]

A:  It is not uncommon when we come into spirituality that we see all these beautiful Masters, we have read all the stories, we have heard about them. It can feel like ‘Yesterday I was fighting with this one about this minor thing, so who am I to be able to…?’ So, we can create these ideas about us and then we can try to live from this place; and that effort itself sounds like a big stone to carry. So, trying to live the life of an enlightened one, trying to live the life of an awakened being (or even a nice person) is a big pain sometimes. [Chuckles]

Everything that is meant to unfold in this life you will find that the moment is already unfolding for us. We don’t have to take on this project. Just laugh and play…, or cry if you want. It’s okay.

This is what I meant when I said ‘Get on my train, then you don’t have to worry about where you are going and what you have to do on the train; whether you have to do some spiritual exercises every day, or you have to be a certain way to be entitled to first class compartment or something’.  [You have to do] nothing. Everyone has a seat here. But you will struggle if you want to keep one leg in that train and one leg in this one. One leg trying to be a nice person or a particular type of person, trying to control the outcomes in this realm, or control anything at all in this realm; then you will struggle. Because in the Guru train, you are leaving all of that behind. Not that you will miss out on life or anything; it is just that you are leaving the’ attachment to’…, you are leaving the guilt and the pride, the regret, the remorse, the resentment, the grievances. These things you are leaving.

Q: Since I have left my train … [Inaudible] … but I have somehow come to acceptance; that it’s inevitable. And it’s okay. But then, it feels like hurt that ‘why?’ But that’s also okay.

A:  If it is okay, it’s good. Usually my response would be that: the ‘Why?’ question truly doesn’t have an answer because the ‘Why?’ question is usually asked from the perspective of individuality. Now, because there is no such individual actually, it can have these pretend answers (why, why) but actually there is none. All these answers are only meant to remove the question. But I feel like you have the ears enough to hear this, that ‘Why?’ actually doesn’t have an answer from a personal perspective, and from the perspective of Being, of Consciousness, it is just a play, it is entertainment. So, the ultimate, or only meaning, that can be given to ‘Why?’ is because it is part of the play. But that will appeal only from the perspective of Being.

So, if you were caught up in your individuality and your best friend is not talking to you and I was to say ‘Oh, it’s part of the play’ you would feel very upset with me and say something like ‘What do you mean! That person was my best friend for twenty-five years and he is saying it is a play!’ That is what I mean by ‘having the ears to hear it’. You have to be able to step back and see it from a universal perspective and see that there is no true answer to this ‘Why?’

Have you noticed (and I have said this before) the mind loves the question ‘Why?’ but the mind hates the question ‘Who?’ It is just one letter difference: the ‘Why?’ and the ‘Who?’ So, if you say ‘Why does this happen that I am losing people?’ If I were to straight-up-front say ‘But who is this happening to?’ [Making a face of consternation] You’d say ‘Oh, there is no way to have a conversation with you, man!’ It becomes like that. But the ‘Why?’ it loves. ‘Why is this happening?’

But what is more fundamental?  ‘Why does this happen?’ Or ‘Who is this happening to?’

Once we identify who it is happening to then maybe the ‘why’ can be answered; possibly. So, just replace that one alphabet letter from ‘Y’ to ‘O’. Then you will see that a lot of clarity comes.

Like I said, we never know, in this realm, why something is happening. I don’t want to again give some answer but you really don’t know. Suppose that some have to leave to make space for those who are more in resonance in the Heart. So, we can give these lame answers because sometimes the ‘Why?’ needs an answer.

Q: [Inaudible]

A:  This is the power of the ‘Who?’ question because it takes our perspective away from our limitedness to our unlimitedness, by a stepping back a step. From that perspective, all of this is a play of light and sound, time and space. All of this leela that is playing out in front of me is so beautiful, so Divine. It is amazing. And what does the mind try? ‘Why? Why are these people leaving?’ It is taking us away from the beauty of this moment.

This moment all of us are sitting here together in this strange room in Bangalore on Old Airport Road with all the traffic, everything. We collect from various parts of the world and we sit here and talk about these things which are out of this realm. There is so much wonder in this, so much joy just being in each other’s Presence. There is So, much beauty. But if you give it to the mind, mind will say ‘You have to figure out why this one is leaving you, why this is happening’. So, this is the play.

Q: In the example of the drop, there is a finite drop which merges. Am I the finite drop?

A: In that example of the drop, actually the drop is in the ocean already. But it seems to have a voice.

Okay, let’s take a simpler example. Let’s take this glass of water. [Picks up a glass of water] It’s only as if there is one part of it, one aspect of this water, that starts speaking as if it is an individual. And then, it seems to attach itself with some molecules or some boundary and says ‘Oh, this is what I am. The rest of it is not me’.

So, our Consciousness, our Being, is like this. It is the infinite ocean in which all these appearances are coming and going, including the appearance of this form that we look at as this body; all of this is there. One Consciousness. One Being. And yet, the ability to mark itself as something limited is only through belief or identification with the mind.

So, it is as if Consciousness designed this play, this leela, in this way. And then it also designed it in a way where it said to Itself ‘Ah, but it’s so beautifully designed’. Consciousness doesn’t need modesty. [Chuckles] Consciousness is saying ‘It’s so beautifully designed, this leela, that I myself might come to a point where I get confused about my true identity so, let me, in the design of this play, also create these ‘alarm clocks’ which will show up from time to time and remind myself that I am not this limited entity’.

These are just metaphors, okay? Not to be taken seriously. But just pointing out how this play of the world seems to function; Consciousness Itself playing as if it is deluded, as if it is duped by illusion (as Janaka said) …, and Consciousness Itself playing the role of Ashtavakra and helping the seeming-others come out of this play of individuality.

So, the person was never actually born. The limited, finite being never actually existed. And that is so obvious because if I ask you ‘In what way is the body concerned about enlightenment?’ …, most of you will say ‘Body is unconcerned’. So, where is that one that is concerned about enlightenment, about money in the bank, about manager at work, about anything? That one just doesn’t exist; even at a phenomenal level. It is just an idea about ourself.

There are, of course, many different lines of teaching, many different pointings. And a popular one is this, where you are an aspect of Consciousness but you are not Consciousness Itself. Now, that is a very popular line of teaching but it is not aligned with the experience that I have had about MySelf. …[Silence]… Although I can see some benefit of it, in that, at least the idea of your own being as an individual entity is seen to be false even there; whether you admit to yourself being Consciousness and the Source of Consciousness Itself, or a part or a drop within Consciousness.

The end of suffering is the end of individuality. And then you can rest with your experience about your discovery about YourSelf. At least, that much all of us can be certain about. At least that entity which wants something…, that is the voice of doership, of duality, of desire. There is no tangibility of such entity; there is nobody like that.

So, we continue our contemplations on the Ashtavakra Gita. We’ve actually managed to finish Chapter 1. Now, starting Chapter 2, which is ‘The Joy of Self-Realization’. So, I’ve said often that this is a unique scripture where just in the first chapter the seeker, the seeker called Janaka, he got it. What did he get? He got that there is nothing to get; and yet, he got it. [Chuckles] You cannot truly answer this question either way. So, did we get it along with him?

The Joy of Self-Realization.

Janaka says:

[2.1] “I am now spotless and at peace, Awareness beyond Consciousness. All this time I have been duped by illusion.”

[2.2] “By this light alone the body and the universe appear. I am Everything or Nothing.”

[2.3] “Seeing there is no universe or body, by grace the Self is revealed.”

[2.4] “As waves, foam and bubbles are not different from water, so the universe emanating from Self is not different from Self.”

[2.5] “Look closely at cloth, you see only threads. Look closely at creation, you see only Self.”

[2.6] “As sweetness pervades sugarcane juice, I am the essence of creation”.

[2.7] “Not seeing Self, the world is materialized. Seeing Self, the world is vanished. A rope is not a snake, but can appear to be.”

[2.8] “I am not other than Light. The universe manifests at my glance.”

These 8 verses are very beautiful. And this is Janaka speaking now. He is confirming what his Master, Ashtavakra, has pointed to him. And he Sees this for himself; that I am this Awareness, beyond Consciousness.

He says, “I am now spotless and at peace, Awareness beyond Consciousness. All this time I have been duped by illusion.”

“…now spotless and at peace” doesn’t mean he has become something else. It doesn’t mean that something fundamentally at the level of Truth changed…, that he became spotless. All that happened is that the pretense dropped away; the idea of individuality, the idea of separate existence dropped away.

So, “… duped by illusion” means what? So, illusion comes. Suppose this is illusion. [Holds up one hand] (We won’t get into that debate yet.) So, suppose this is illusion; the worldly phenomenal appearance that appears. How to get duped by it?

If it was the other way around, where, as Consciousness, you went to a Master and said ‘It’s too boring to just be All That Is. I’m finding no juice in this movie because until I consider myself to be [some character] …, Sarod, I don’t find anything interesting to play here’. So, what will the Master say? (This is the reverse-Master.) He saying ‘But I’ve given you this voice that convinces you of your individuality. All you have to do is believe what this voice is saying’. So, this is how to get duped by illusion. You want to get duped by illusion? All you have to do is buy what this voice, this story, is telling you. It is not the appearance, per say; without the collaboration of the mind which can make Consciousness Itself play as if it is duped.

You See this by now? I’m saying that suppose the game was the other way around. We did not collect here to find freedom. We collected here because, as aspects of Consciousness, we found out that we are Consciousness Itself; in fact, even that which is aware of Consciousness. We found out, just like Janaka did. But if Janaka, instead of this report…, he had the report saying ‘But this is too [boring]’. (Nobody will really have that report, but suppose.) He says ‘I miss being Janaka. I’m tired of being this All There Is. I want to be individual again. I want to be ego again. I want to get the taste of how it feels to suffer from personal relationships, from identity, from feeling a lack of money, from worrying about this body; I want to experience that, taste that. Can you please help me? Tell me how to do it’.

How to do it? Can you tell me how you could be able to do it now?

Is this not truly your starting point? …, (although I’m saying it jokingly.) But truly when you check, what do you discover about yourself now?

So, then what is happening is that we are playing a two-step game. First, we are picking up the idea that ‘I’m not free and I want something; I want freedom’. Then we are picking up the idea that ‘How do I get it; how do I come to this?’

Who is it not free for right now…, (that you are unlimited Being, unlimited Consciousness…, and you are aware of this?)

This cannot be that this is not true …, because this is the Truth (capital ‘T’). So, you must buy a ‘but’. ‘But…, Yes, but…’

Shall we play like this? In this moment, what do you find yourself to be?

And then, you can hear the voice coming: ‘Yes, but…’ [Chuckles] You see, it has a certain magnetism. I’m not denying it. It’s a habit. Like if you notice, every time I put on the specs [spectacles, glasses] they are fine. I put them on. Then, for a few minutes, I’ll keep doing this. [Reaches up and moves his glasses a bit up and down and sideways.] There’s nothing to fix. There’s nothing to adjust. It’s absolutely fine. It’s just habit; fiddling.

So, like that, we have this habit of fiddling with the mind. There is nothing to do, and yet our habit is to presume that there is something to fix.

What is our starting point? Truly, I’m asking: What is our starting point in this moment? And don’t rely on a judgment or an inference or a report from the past or an idea or a projection of the future. What is your bondage? What is your trouble? [Silence] Who is it that you are…, Right Now? Can you put a word to it? Do you have a label actually?

So, “duped by illusion” is just this. There’s a body which is appearing, then there comes a label, there comes a name; name and form.

Does this mean that we are in denial of the worldly appearance? It just appears. [Silence] But does the appearance of it make me an object within it?

How do you do this magic? How do You, the Supreme Lord of the world, of the universe, consider YourSelf to be a measly object of flesh and blood?

I’m not putting the body down. [Chuckles] I’m just saying…, compared to Your magnificence, this is a tiny aspect of You; Divine, beautiful…, beautiful instrument, of course.

Are you going to be convinced when you see yourself as the virat roop? [means majestic form] What is the virat roop? What Krishna showed Arjuna. Finally, after sharing the truth, Arjuna says (in one interpretation) ‘Lord, I’m still not convinced. Can you truly show me what you look like?’ And, as Guruji [Mooji] said, Krishna must have been a bit disappointed when he heard that question. The formless reality was being pointed to very clearly before that. And yet, there comes a point where it can feel like ‘I need to see the most magnificent form to convince myself’.

Are you waiting for some demonstration, some experience to convince yourself of that which is so obvious by now? No ‘but’.

I enjoyed very much one video of Papaji (many of you have seen it also) where one comes to him in satsang and says ‘Papaji, can you show me God? I don’t see God’. So simple. Papaji said: ‘Don’t’ is doubt. Forget about ‘don’t’. What do you see?’

What do you see? It’s not word-play. What do you see? I’m waiting for the answer. Sometimes it’s good to affirm this because we can be so diffident about the truth…, and so confident about the lie about us. We can really see God? Or ‘don’t’ or ‘doubt’ remain the crutches of a thought?

So, to experience Reality, to experience the magnificence of Your Being, you don’t need anything at all.

So, Janaka came to this discovery. He says: [2.2] “By this light alone the body and the universe appear. I am Everything or Nothing.”

What is the meaning of this “I am Everything or Nothing”? How can you be everything and nothing? Opposites. Actually, you are no-thing. You are That which is prior to all forms…, and yet, You are All There Is. Therefore, all forms also must be You alone. Everything comes from There. Everything that manifests is made up only of the Self.

[Silence]

Just like seemingly in the dream, you are everything actually …, but you can feel like, you can pretend as if, you are just an aspect of it. But even if there are mountains or rivers or great forests in the dream, it is all You; all of this. Unless you let the mind convince you that there is a boundary, there is a ‘me’ and there is ‘other’ then you will see this world of duality actually is only One.

How to see it? I will not take you there. I cannot take you there. I can only show you that You Already Are That.

I was saying to somebody the other day: Get off the mind train and get on my train. [Chuckles] If you try to ride on two trains, what’s going to happen to you? What’s going to happen? That’s why actually sometimes for those in satsang life seems to get tougher in the beginning because you try to ride both; you try to sit on two chairs at the same time, you try to ride two horses at the same time, you try to get on two trains.

What is the mind going to give you that the Guru’s grace cannot? What is it that you think? We still have an idea that ‘Oh, yes, this is beyond the scope of the Master or the Satguru’. I’ve found in my experience that nothing is beyond the scope of the Satguru. That is just the purest expression of Consciousness Itself. And that Consciousness is the Light of this world. In the Light of existence, the Light I Am, does anything else exist? So, That which is the purest expression of This… is That Itself, is Consciousness itself.

What is the greatest offer that you can get from the mind? “Follow me, and you will get…’ What?

Sangha: Enlightenment.

Ananta: [Chuckles] Exactly! But for us (those who are attached to the seeker identity) the mind knows that ‘Yes, I will promise enlightenment’.

What else? Anything else?

Sangha: Nothing else.

Ananta: Mostly in satsang, in the sangha, this will be the offer. ‘I will give you enlightenment’ is the mind’s offer. It will say ‘You get on these 10 steps, 15 steps. You’re doing very well…, sometimes you’re doing very well; sometimes you’re doing terribly badly’ (according to the mind’s report card).

And yet, what is the ‘en-light-en-ment’? That light which we are looking for, will it come eventually? Is it missing right now? Can it be? Is it valuable if it is a light also which comes and goes? If it will come tomorrow, or if (in some cases) it was something that you found somewhere else and yesterday, then how valuable can that be? It also comes and goes…, just like watching a movie.

So, firstly, enlightenment is not ‘an experience’. We can have an awakening experience in which it can seem like ‘I don’t find the sense of an individual me’. But in reality, Right Now, there is no individual me. Sometimes it can seem very obvious; other times it can seem less obvious. The fact is, this is the Truth.

So, then it [the mind] says ‘I will give you enlightenment. And here, let me tell you how you are un-enlightened right now’. Isn’t it? So, if I ask you, you will say ‘Na, Ananta, I still get angry, I have this, I still have that, I’m still concerned about security’. But can you be any of this without referring to a thought about yourself?

To be, you need no thought. To exist, you need no thought. But to be something, to be somebody (even that somebody that wants enlightenment) you need some thought, some concept about yourself. So, immediately, even in that very beautiful-sounding goal ‘I need enlightenment’ or ‘I want enlightenment’…, what are you referring to yourself as?

Sangha: Unenlightened.

Ananta: Unenlightened what? Unenlightened Being? Or unenlightened person? Let’s be honest. [Chuckles]

So, every concept that we buy about ourselves sells us the identity of a limitation. ‘Person’ doesn’t necessarily mean just body; it means any concept of limitation that I might have about myself.

And when you look and check about yourself, what do you find? Without judgment, without inference; just in your insight. Tell me if you find this one who wants enlightenment…, or wants anything at all.

~ ~ ~

Reading from the Ashtavakra Gita, Translation by Bart Marshall

http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Ashtavakra-Gita-ebook.pdf

Ananta has initiated a game: [fill in the blank] “I am Awareness but…,

~ ~ ~

[Ananta reads the question from the online chat messages]:

She says, “I am Awareness but…”. I feel more attracted to suffering.”

I’m glad she said it [Chuckles] because if I say it, then you take it in the wrong way.

You say, “Because Consciousness actually is not done with its individuality” …, which means not done with tasting the taste of suffering yet. It doesn’t want to come into this simplicity, where it becomes a struggle to suffer. At the root of it, it is this.

It’s like you buy tickets to a merry-go-round.  [Gestures with his finger in a circle] And every time you get on it, you get giddy and nauseous. But the seller of the ticket always comes and says ‘No, no, Madam, (or Sir) we’ve changed this ride now. It’s nausea-free. Its ten rupees’. And gives us the belief that ‘This time the ride will be better. This time I will make something out of this ride, it will be meaningful and relevant’. We get on this ride, and again, all we end up getting is giddy. But it’s just this: something still wants the taste of that attempt.

Like the story of the prodigal son, we can have this sense that there is a chance that we can give this individuality some meaning. ‘I’m going to make it, I’m going to show my Father that I can make it on my own’. That is the ego’s voice. ‘I can make it as a separate individual’. You see? It knows the inevitability of death of this body; it knows. And yet is says ‘No! If I have a statue in my name [Laughs] then I will make myself immortal. If I have a building named after me, then I will make myself immortal’.

The Truth is plainly obvious…, even to the mind actually. Yet it makes every attempt to take the attributes of God, the attributes of Consciousness, and replicate it in a personal way.

[Ananta has asked sangha to fill in the blank after “I Am Awareness, but….”]

A: So, it can’t be that simple? The mind will say ‘It can’t be that simple’. We’ve have heard stories of meditators who meditated on tops of mountains for thousands of years. And there were meditators who meditated so much that there were anthills formed on top of them and people didn’t even recognize that there is a Sage meditating over there; it just looked like there is an anthill. These kinds of stories we have heard. So, if those had to do all of that, how can Ananta now sit here and tell all of us that what that Sage was after is already here, before you can even intend to meditate. Is it possible?

Q: [Inaudible]

A: He is saying the mind has a story. He’s saying that mind is saying ‘In your last birth, you must have done all that already, so all the back-log is done’.  Yes? ‘Now you are ready’. So, all of you…, (Okay, let us take that story. As far as stories go it is not so bad).

So now, once you have played this game, (it is a very nice one) a few times, a couple of times we’ve played…, I said ‘Complete the sentence ‘I am Awareness, but….’ then fill in the blank. There is a blank after ‘but’. How many have the ‘but’? Don’t be scared. You [Nodding at someone in the room] have the ‘but’. What is it?

Q: I am Awareness but I choose to get distracted and move away into phenomenality. At times, I feel that vastness and complete undifferentiated nothingness but most of the time I drift from that. I am stuck in attention. Attention flows, wanders and gets captured on whatever the thing is in front of me.

A: Very good, let’s stay with this. I am very happy with what [he] says, so let us stay with this. He says ‘Sometimes I see this unlimited vastness and at other times just my attention gets caught up in other worldly things. So, right now I am also seeing all these worldly things. All these bodies are sitting in front of me, there is a computer in front of me, attention is here. So, what happened to That which witnessed both this vastness…, and now witnesses the world?

Many times, we can get the idea that if we are experiencing, or witnessing, or perceiving some vast space or some big white light, completely unlimited. Because the mind hears these words and it is happy to collaborate in this way. And sometimes we may experience our own Presence in this way. We feel like this is the most beautiful. And the mind will say ‘When it is that, then you are free; when it is not that, then you are not free. But, this is not true. Just by the movement of attention doesn’t mean that You move. That which attention reports to remains the same.

So, even in this…, the ‘I’ is such a chameleon as Guruji [Sri Mooji] says, it attaches to the attention also, which is such an intimate tool. So, when it goes somewhere, we say ‘I went’. Now, where is That to which attention is reporting? What happened to that one?

Q: It is still here, but in my experience, it gets covered up because the attention flits to the different things and it gets covered up. Many times, the attention falls back on itself and I experience myself as That-ness and then the attention flows and that aspect of me flows out again. It is still there. ‘I Am’ still there but it gets covered up by the attention…

A: So, I have some good news for you which is that…, let’s take another way of putting the same thing what he is saying. He is saying that ‘I find myself as if it is an outward movement or an inward movement and at times there comes an obstacle in the middle’. It gets covered up means it gets blocked. So, what I am saying to you is the Truth of what You are is neither an outward movement, not an inward movement. Therefore, the movement of attention (although it can be an aide sometimes in the self-inquiry, in the recognition of what You are), it is not a prerequisite that those who are enlightened or those who are Sages, their attention must only be in Awareness itself. Then why would they wake up into this waking-state called the world? You see, they can exist; nothing without our attention on it. So, when Awareness or the Self, is done playing the game of this dynamism, of Its dynamic aspect of appearance as the world, then it might not ever wake up.

So, the fact that there is something that still wants to experience itself in this phenomenal way in the waking state will come. What we are saying is that no movement, either left or right, or in or out, is required for you to be YourSelf. Therefore, the Truth can never be covered up. It can, at best play a pretense; it can, at best, be a façade which all of us have been playing.

This is another very, very popular mind trick. It is one of the trump cards of the mind. It tells you that ‘Ah, that experience which you had, in which there was nothing at all, it is just unlimited space, when you stay in that experience then you will be free’. It comes and says like that. I am saying to you that no matter what appearances are coming and where attention is going, you will remain unlimited irrespective.

So, now let us take a simple example so we can relate to this in a simpler way. If you always thought, or you were always told by everyone (your parents, your family, all the people you met, and the voice in your mind) that actually the sun comes up from the West. This is what you always believed. Then you meet someone, a rare one comes on your path, and he says ‘What are you saying? The sun doesn’t come from the West, it comes from the East’. Then you say ‘No, no it can’t be’. And if you trust this one, you say ‘Okay, tomorrow morning, wake up at this time and you check’. So, you check and ‘Ah, the sun came from the East’. You say ‘Maybe, it is only today. Maybe this one did some magic on me, or maybe his Presence is so magical that it is so easy to check if the sun comes from the East’. All of the things that we hear from in satsang: ‘It is so easy in satsang’. Then you say ‘Okay’. You check again, and check again, and check again. You have checked a hundred times.

Now the mind will come with its trick and say ‘You have to be in that checking state otherwise the sun will come from the West. It is because you are looking that the sun is coming out from the East’. It is not true! Whether the insight is there or not, whether you are checking this or not, whether attention is going to thousands of objects in the world or it is remaining unattached to any phenomena, You Are the Self.

So, let us see what it means when you say, or someone says that ‘It gets covered up’. What is this process of covering up? This is what we are discovering. Isn’t it? Now, all of you, move your attention to wherever it wants to go and tell me how the Self went away? Don’t try to control your attention, let it go wherever it wants. Tell me how the Self went? Did it go? Did something get covered up? No, attention got attracted to some objects, some phenomenal content was perceived; where did You go? Did You lose YourSelf? Nobody can lose it. Because if you lost YourSelf, then who is looking at attention going here and there? You are still here, the witness of even attention.

So, attention goes. [Gesturing with his hand moving back and forwards] Now what happens? The voice of the interpreter comes. Suppose now attention went on a bodily phenomenon called pain, or anger, frustration (any of these popular ones). Sensation is there, attention is going to it; no trouble, nothing got covered up. You don’t find an individual experiencer of this pain. But the voice comes and says ‘See now, till you are free from this anger, till you are free from this frustration you will not be free.’ When we instantly buy this concept about ourselves, then it seems like our individualized identity comes to the fore again. Without this, there is no covering up.

Wherever your attention might wander, you will never lose the Self. Even in the belief to the thought, you actually don’t lose the Self, you just attach. So, if I is the Self (I-Being, this I Am) and then with this concept ‘I must be free of pain, or I must be free of anger, or I must be free of lust, or I must be free of something’ …, Consciousness then poses as if it is something now limited.

So, this is the getting duped by illusion. It is not in the play of attention alone; it is attention working in co-ordination with belief. If you have a bank locker; one key is with you, the other key is with the banker and you go to the bank to open the locker, both have to be there. You turn one and the banker turns the other one. So, both attention and belief have to work in co-ordination for you to pose as if you are something limited.

That is why when the Zen Master said ‘Let all thoughts come and go, don’t serve them tea’ he did not say ‘Don’t let any thoughts come’. All that is coming can come; don’t serve them the tea of your belief, don’t identify. With what? Only the next one [thought]. I have made it super simple for you …, because your starting point is this freedom.

[1.17] Ashtavakra said: “You are unconditioned, changeless, formless. You are solid, unfathomable, cool. Desire nothing. You are Consciousness.”

~ ~ ~

“You are unconditioned, changeless, formless.” Now, see, these are very important things! [Smiles at his own exuberance] When we hear it, it can seem like ‘Yeah, he’s just on a roll, he’s saying all beautiful things’ but every word is very beautiful.

How many of us are trying to get rid of our conditioning? (You don’t have to raise your hand. Just look.) How many of us are trying to get over our tendencies and our conditioning?

But what is the Sage saying? “You are unconditioned.” So, which voice are you going to believe now? The voice which is saying ‘You must get over your conditioning. You must do this and this and this and get over your greed and your lust and your need for money and power’ and all of these things? Or are you going to look at this one and see what he’s saying: ‘You are unconditioned’.

What is your experience right now? This is what I do almost every day; I ask you: Before you think about it, are you conditioned or unconditioned?

It is impossible to have a condition without a concept. Right now, you are empty as a baby; you are empty. In this moment. Until you pick up the thought ‘Am I? He doesn’t know me really.’ Something. Some idea, which becomes a condition. Like I was saying yesterday (now the bad news) with one condition not only that condition comes, the whole seeming-identity of the person comes…, (seems to come; never really comes; it only seems to come) …, that all my history, all my stories, all my beliefs about myself, they seem to appear and I tug at one leaf from this tree and the whole tree appears; the whole identity seems to be present here.

But the good news is what Ashtavakra is telling us: You are unconditioned.

I like to say that you have the services of the best cleaning lady or the best cleaning man in the world. Who is this one? It is Consciousness Itself. In this moment, all the clean-up has happened. So, even the prior conditioning, you can pick up it even now; or you can leave it only now. That is why Bhagavan [Sri Ramana Maharshi] said ‘If you feel like you have a choice, make the choice not to go along with what your thoughts are saying’. As I repeated for two years non-stop maybe: Just don’t believe your next thought. Why? Because the Self is already here. You see?

The unconditioned Being, your unassociated Consciousness is your starting point. You have never left the destination. And this must become your insight. If you leave the past aside, if you forget about the projections of the future for just one moment, and you don’t infer or judge anything that appears in this moment…

Everyone do this with me. And the power to do this is here with you; don’t buy an idea that ‘Oh, I’m not able to do this now’.

Leave the past aside.

All thoughts that are coming about past, let them come and go.

Future, also don’t be concerned about it. Let it be.

Whatever is, here and now, don’t make an inference out of it, don’t make a judgment out of it.

Just remain with your inner vision; insight.

You will find that effortlessly: You Exist.

Thought or no thought,

Past or no past,

Future or no future,

You Exist.

And you will find that you are aware of your existence.

Don’t grasp at anything.

Don’t push anything aside.

Don’t worry about any sensation that might be coming up.

Don’t interpret it, don’t judge it.

Which means what?
Let the interpretations and judgments come and go.

It doesn’t mean you have to resist anything.

You exist effortlessly.

Your identity is dependent on your thoughts.

Your existence is independent of them.

[Silence]

Anything that the mind might be throwing at you,

Don’t be concerned with it.

Just check:

Who witnesses that?

[Silence]

Imagine that you have a basket

and everything that is changing, we are going to put into that basket.

So, this world which we are perceiving goes into the basket.

The body with its sensations and visuals goes into the basket.

All our thoughts, imaginations, memories go into the basket.

All the emotions, sensations, pain and pleasure all go into the basket.

I witness even my Presence. I’m aware of my existence…,

So, even that can go into the basket.

Now, are YOU in the basket?

At which point did YOU go into the basket?

Or do YOU remain?

…without any attribute, without any quality…

[Silence]

“You are unconditioned, changeless, formless. You are solid, unfathomable, cool.”

‘Cool’ means what? It’s not ‘I’m so cool’…, like that. [Chuckles] I’m just unperturbed, unconcerned with the movement of this phenomenal realm.

Why does the Sage say the word ‘solid’? … while at the same time saying that you have no qualities? ‘Solid’ here must imply that it is a valid experience of the Self, it is not just some airy-fairy story.

“You are unconditioned, changeless, formless. You are solid, unfathomable, cool. Desire nothing. You are Consciousness.”

So, put the second one first:

If You are Consciousness, I am already all there is.

I Am That I Am.

Then what desire can I have?

[1.18] Ashtavakra said: “That which has form is not real. Only the formless is permanent. Once this is known, you will not return to illusion.”

“That which has form is not real.”  It doesn’t mean it is not appearing. Forms are appearing; but appearance is what? As appearances. That’s why right in the beginning, we defined Reality to mean that which is unchanging. And he clarifies that also in the next sentence: “That which has form is not real. Only the formless is permanent. Once this is known, you will not return to illusion.”

[1.19] Ashtavakra said: “Just as a mirror exists both within and without the image reflected, the Supreme Self exists both within and without the body.”

You see? You see your reflection in the mirror. The rest of the reflection is also in the mirror, isn’t it? And the reflection itself also is in the mirror. In the same way, the Supreme Self is the substratum of this appearance of the world, but it is not contained by it. You Are that large (not large in a phenomenal way) …, You are that great, that magnificent, that nothing can contain You; not this universe at least, for sure.

So, another definition of satsang that I like (which is a bit crazy; my style) [Chuckles] is that besides the company of the Truth or the company of Existence, is that satsang is a voyage outside this universe. We don’t have to climb into a spaceship, we don’t have to buy a ticket to anything. But when you find YourSelf, you find That which is beyond this universe of time and space; beyond any limitation of name and form.

People are paying billion dollars for (what is it?) this space mission (and there’s no guarantee that it will succeed or that they’ll ever actually come back) just to experience being out of this Earth. But being in satsang, in one moment of clarity …, what Earth? …, you are out of this universe. So, this…, there is no greater discovery than discovering the Self.

[1.20] Ashtavakra said: “Just as the same space exists both within and without a jar, the timeless, all-pervasive One exists as Totality.”

This one is very clear. We’ve talked about this; that you are the substratum and all that appears is appearing in the space within You. Just like the space is the substratum of this phenomenal world, where all objects (including a jar) is appearing within it; and yet the space outside and inside the jar is the same.

No separation has happened in space. In the same way, no separation has ever happened in your existence, in your Being.

So, this is the end of Chapter 1.

[1.16] Ashtavakra said: “You are pure Consciousness, the substance of the universe. The universe exists within You. Don’t be small-minded.”

~ ~ ~

“You are pure Consciousness, the substance of the universe. The universe exists within You. Don’t be small-minded.”

So, there is a gentle rebuke there.

“You are pure Consciousness, the substance of the universe. The universe exists within You. Don’t be small-minded.”

What does it mean, “You are … the substance of the universe”? Literally, it is that; in the sense that the universe is made up of You. Just like the dream is made up of what? Your own Consciousness, isn’t it? Therefore, we are relieved to accept this about the dream state; and we feel there is something special about this waking state. But this exact same moment, this exact same thing, could be happening in a dream tonight also…, where you find that the potential within you, within Consciousness, to project all this movement is that.

And if these insights seem too alien to you and they cause only frustration, the forget about it. Better forget about it. Don’t force yourself to recognize that you are the substance of the universe. You just keep finding out who You are. Let these insights be the by-products. You see, sometimes the clues which are meant to help, sometimes they themselves become the obstacles. [Chuckles] So, best, what to do? If anything feels too confusing, too far out, too radical, you cannot relate to it, just leave it. Don’t bother with it.

The inquiry ‘Who am I?’ …, the insight about your Truth, THAT will remain unchanging. And upon finding the Self, have you noticed that every Master still has a different report about the phenomenal world? You see, that is the play of this phenomenal world. Every aspect of Consciousness is experiencing it differently. So, don’t try to get consistency about phenomenal appearances. But one thing you will find consistently with those who have come to the truth of them-Self is that ‘I am this unchanging witnessing; the unborn Self which is beyond the realms of birth and death, beyond the states of waking, dream, sleep, turiya…, (somebody asked about) samadhi’. So, we are speaking beyond that. You can leave these states alone. Too much trouble, too much struggle. I feel it’s the trouble and struggle that’s the part of the play of Consciousness…, knowing fully well that It has created this unlimited expression, and then noticing all these aspects of Itself trying to give some consistency to the phenomenal appearance. There is none.

Find the Truth of what You Are. And there, we can meet as One.

[Silence]

Okay, I should explain the term “Don’t be small-minded” because traditionally in Vedanta also they have defined it like ‘Big Mind’ and ‘small mind’. So, even Consciousness…, Consciousness Itself has been defined as the Big Mind. So, when people say ‘Everything is Mind; all the appearances are Mind’ what is he talking about? Because terminology can become confusing, then people get confused that this is some ‘solipsism’ or something like that. It is not that. [Solipsism is the philosophical theory that what’s in your mind is the only reality that can be known and verified.] We’re talking about Consciousness Itself being the Big Mind.

Actually, I remember many years ago, long before I met Guruji [Mooji] I met another very sweet Master called Swami Tejomayananda ji. And I had gone to him and at that time, I was reading a lot of (I don’t know how many of you have heard of Seth) the Seth books, ‘Seth speaks’. So, I went to him and I felt like I had a very fancy question. [Chuckles] I said to him ‘If I am creating this realm, then why can’t I decide to create like a palace for myself and unlimited wealth?’ I asked him like that. And he said to me, very simply (not impressed with my question at all) [Chuckles] he said ‘You are confusing the Big Mind and the small mind’. And I didn’t understand the answer at all at that point.

Because it is this Consciousness which is the projecting light, which is the screen, which is the actor, producer, director; everything of this world appearance. And somewhere, many places in Vedanta, even that is referred to as ‘Mind’…, at least in the translations, that is referred to as ‘Mind’. And that can cause confusion. Many times, you will see quotes from even Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] and from [Nisargadatta] Maharaj where they say ‘Everything is a projection of your mind’. And another time Bhagavan would say ‘The mind is only a bundle of thoughts’. Because in translations, in terminology, this confusion can happen.

So, what is the ‘small mind’? It is this mind that we speak of as the voice of your limitation, the voice of your individuality, that voice which seems to be within our heads that is convincing you that you are a separate entity. So, when the sage Ashtavakra is saying “Don’t be small-minded” this is what he means. The same thing which he said earlier; don’t be a person, don’t pretend to be something limited.

[1.14] Ashtavakra said: “You have long been bound thinking: ‘I am a person’. Let the knowledge: ‘I am Awareness alone’ be the sword that frees you.”

~ ~ ~

So, picking up the Ashtavakra from Verse 14 of Chapter 1. I did a bit of this the other day, but I’ll just repeat. “You have long been bound thinking: ‘I am a person’. Let the knowledge: ‘I am Awareness alone’ be the sword that frees you.”

And as I was saying the other day, it is not the idea ‘I am Awareness’ which can free you. It is the Knowledge, the Knowingness, the insight, the direct recognition of this fact (which is the only unchanging fact, actually). Everything else has been changing. The ‘person’ is a bundle of change, isn’t it? If I asked you ten years ago ‘What kind of person are you?’ you would have said ‘I’m like this, I’m like this, I’m like this’. If I asked you today ‘What kind of a person are you?’ [You’d say]: ‘I like this, I do this, this is what I’m interested in, I want freedom’. You see? These kinds of things. So, this is the changing. And just now, you could pick up another idea (any of us could pick up a new idea) and in that picking up, it becomes part of our identity. The mind is offering new aspects to your identity with every thought.

But there comes a point where we get tired of this changing person. Consciousness Itself outgrows it (is a better term actually) …, outgrows the personal identity and then wants to come to the exploration of Its own reality; unlimited Being…, and thus creates this sort of environment for Itself where It can recognize Its own Source. What am I, really? Who am I, really? And why do I say ‘really’? Because we defined Reality as that which is directly experience and that which remains unchanging. So, what is it that I Am?

The sage has said, “Let the knowledge ‘I am Awareness alone’ be the sword that frees you.”

Why I have to elaborate on this a little bit is because many times it can be that we can pick up this idea ‘I am Awareness’ and use it as a competing idea to ‘I am a person’. You see? Something personal is coming; then we use another idea ‘No, no, I am Awareness’. Suppose some anger is coming and the mind is saying ‘See? You’re getting angry. You’re not free yet’. And the mind itself will use ‘Oh, I am Awareness, I am Awareness’. So, we create another Mahabharata for ourself; a war between two concepts. Just the conceptual knowledge that ‘I am Awareness’ does not help you. In fact, it might create more conflict. So, this Knowledge is the Knowledge with a capital ‘K’. It must be your own insight.

Now, if someone comes and tells you ‘You are a frog’ will you believe it? You don’t believe it because you have an insight that you’re not one. No matter how much that one tries to convince you that you are a frog, you will not believe it.

Then, in the same way, you have the insight about yourself, that You Are Awareness …, that no matter how much the mind tries, you’ll hardly ever fall for this trick. (I don’t want to say 100% because there is no 100% …, even for a sage. So, drop that expectation.) Most of the time, when the mind offers to you that you are a limited entity (with all its aspects of desire, duality and doership) you will not buy that story. It will sound as funny as if someone was coming and telling you that you are a pink elephant or a Martian or a frog or something like this.

So, this is the Knowledge I’m speaking of, which comes from Your recognition about YourSelf. And what has the sage said? How to come to this recognition? He says that You are not any of the five elements, You are not anything phenomenal (although they might arise from You and dissolve within You) …, yet Your greater position is That as a witness to these.

So, what is this witness? And you have to clarify for yourself. Am I this witness?

Many times, when I say ‘witness’ the mind will come and create a visual of an entity sitting over there and witnessing all of this. You see? That’s why (preferable to the term ‘witness’) I use the term ‘Witnessing’. You are the Witnessing Itself. You are the Awareness Itself. It is not an entity which owns Awareness; not somebody being aware. Being gets Its Being within Awareness. (Don’t worry; if the words confuse you, don’t worry about it.) Our job is just to check:

Who witnesses all that is phenomenal?

Who witnesses all that is in the realm of change?

Who witnesses the world through this body?
Is there something which is witnessing the movement of your body right now?

(Some-‘thing’ is not an accurate term, but we’ll use that for now.)

Is there something which watches the movements of your thoughts?

When one thought goes, and the other one has not yet come, are you still here?

In the space between two thoughts, does the witness remain?

Therefore, I must be independent of my thoughts. The mind will convince you that you are the mind. But the mind (as Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] said) is nothing but a bundle of thoughts. But even in the space between two thoughts, you remain. Otherwise, how would the Zen Master say ‘no-mind’? If you were just the mind, then who would be here to ‘taste’ no-mind?

So, you cannot be this body. We already spoke about where we know it is changing already. So, then, breath, emotions, sensations; what about all of these? They are also changing. What about the witness of these; does that one also change? In this entire realm of phenomena…, if in this entire realm of change we cannot find anything which is unchanging, we must look at who witnesses the change. If we are looking for Truth, if we are looking for Reality, we must find the one that is witnessing all that is changing.

And already all of us know (we have been in satsang long enough to know) that when we attach to that which is changing, what’s going to happen?  When it changes, it is going to cause suffering. That is the nature of attachment. Therefore, what can we attach to…, if all phenomenon is changing? What is it that can give us the stability that we are looking for?

Are you aware now?

Who taught you how to be aware?

Can you forget how to be aware?

Now, many neo-Advaitans will say ‘But even this Awareness, I am not’. It’s the funniest thing! [Chuckles] What are they saying? ‘I am aware that even Awareness I am not’ or ‘I know that even Knowingness, I’m not’. So, in that moment when you were not Awareness or Knowingness, what knew…, that you are not that? [Chuckles] That’s just a mind game! Better you forget about these concepts. Because you haven’t experienced the true nature of the Self and you want to cling to a fantastic idea about the truth that you’ve discovered. You can pick up this idea that ‘I’m beyond even the Self’. Because if it was your experience…, you cannot have an experience unless you were aware. You see?

[Silence]

So, the sage said, Let the knowledge: ‘I am Awareness alone’ be the sword that frees you.”

Now, ‘I am Awareness alone’ does not mean that we do not experience the Presence of Consciousness. It only means that Consciousness is made up of the Self, is made up of Awareness Itself. All That Is…, is Awareness Itself.

[1.15] Ashtavakra said: “You are now and forever free, luminous, transparent, still. The practice of meditation keeps one in bondage.”

~ ~ ~

“You are now and forever free, luminous, transparent, still. The practice of meditation… [Chuckles] … keeps one in bondage.”

So, let me look at the second part first, because those meditators must be getting worried now. [Chuckles] So, what does this mean? “The practice of meditation Keeps one in bondage.”

Often when I get this question that ‘Can I continue to meditate?’ or ‘Is meditation helpful to me?’ I usually say ‘Yes, of course’. It depends on the questioner. I usually say ‘Yes, it is, but the ‘meditator’ is not helpful to you’. Many times, it is the practitioner identity which itself becomes so strong that all of this seeking of the Self depends on ‘How long I have meditated today’ or ‘What are the experiences I had in my meditation?’ You see? ‘What colors of light did I see? Which astral worlds did I travel to?’ It becomes all about this thing. So, it becomes another type of game. Just like this realm is a game; you can experience everything here also. So, then we want to experience other realms and that itself becomes the identity. You see?

So, the meditator identity, the practitioner identity, is what the Sage is pointing to; that not even this we can be attached to. There is nothing wrong with the meditation itself. Because meditation is what? Again, it is satsang; it is to be in the company of the Self, to be in the company of the Truth. That is true meditation, isn’t it? So, it is not meditation which is the problem; it is the idea of being ‘the meditator’ and the spiritual ego associated with meditation.

Also, other struggles can come (one day in meditation). And this I speak from my own experience of the past. One day, meditation, you can feel like it is so still, so beautiful, so much peace; not even breath is there, everything is gone. It can feel like that. Then you can have an idea that ‘Today, I will make it even better when I meditate’. Then what happens when you start meditating? All these thoughts about work and relationships and money and all of these things …, and you’re getting more and more frustrated, saying ‘Oh, yesterday was so good; I missed it’.

That’s why Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi has made it so simple for us by giving us a simple inquiry, this simple contemplation ‘Who am I?’ Because in this inquiry, you cannot even hold on to the identity of the inquirer. Even that will be squeezed out of you. There is no potential to keep the identity of the practitioner. So, this is the general point.

But I want to talk to you (because I feel you can hear it) …, I want to talk to you about the subtler point, which is: What is it that You Are? Before the intention to meditate or the practice of meditation, in this moment Now, before you even pick up the idea ‘I must meditate’ or the practice of meditation, are You not the Self?

So, then the idea of something to do to get somewhere itself is bondage, isn’t it? It reinforces the idea again that you are a limited entity…, that if you do A-B-C and X-Y-Z, then you will come to this point, which is freedom. And what are all the Masters saying? They got hoarse saying that You Are Free, Right Now.

You don’t have to believe this, but the least you can do is check if this is true Right Now…, or not. If you say you follow the words of the Master, then the least we can do is, in this moment, check:

What is here? Is there something which is bound?

Before you can go to the content of your next thought, before you can worry about any emotion, feeling, anything to do:

What is it that you are? …, empty of all of these concepts.

Before the intention of any doership, what are you Here and Now?

Are you something which is bound by the sensations of your body boundaries?

(Let me repeat slowly.)

Are you something that is bound by the sensations of the body which might seem to you like they are boundaries of you?
Are they not another energetic appearance within your own Being, within your own Existence?

And if you are beyond this…, if the body boundary is just another appearance within You, how long will we identify as just this bucket of flesh and blood?

[Silence]

That’s why the Sage said, “You are now and forever free, luminous, transparent, still.”

And I explained the other day that if you keep looking for these attributes (‘Let me find the transparent one, let me find the free one, let me find the luminous one’) you’ll just get confused. So, you are not to search for these attributes in that way. You only have to search for YourSelf.

And then, as you come to this recognition, see that it is true what he’s saying. That which You are finding about YourSelf is free, is luminous, is transparent, is still. In that way, these pointings are to be used to check and to inquire into the Truth of what we are finding.

Like a very beautiful one that the Sage said earlier, “You are not Earth, water, fire, air.” And quickly, the mind…, what does it give you? It gives you the picture of some space. ‘Okay, I am not Earth, water, fire, air…, so I must be this space’. So, quickly the Sage said ‘Even the space you are not’.

Now, the mind is lost because it cannot define or visualize anything which is beyond space. It just keeps giving you different visuals of various types of space; maybe some dark space, maybe some infinite space, maybe some white space, some colorful space. But if you say ‘Not even space’ then at that moment, the question comes to you: ‘Are you going to keep the allegiance to this mind?’ Because now we’ve come to a point where the mind cannot help you.  [Silence] Not that the mind is going to admit that. It will keep trying to visualize, it will keep trying to conceptualize. It will even hang onto the concept ‘Oh, it is beyond the mind’. You see? But your looking must go beyond even space. So, if the mind is giving you a visual of some dark space or some white light or whatever it is, don’t worry; use even that and ask yourself:

Who is aware of this?

Who witnesses even this?

Does that have a color?

So, when the Sage says “transparent” that’s what it means. Sometimes in the translation, the words can seem a bit confusing.

Does That which is the witness of all things …, does that Itself have a color?

And that one is which one? That is You. You.

So, if You don’t have color, size, shape, age …, then what must You be?

You are just this Awareness…, which is not an object.

Therefore, you cannot find YourSelf objectively.

[1.3] Ashtavakra says, “You are not earth, water, fire or air. Nor are you empty space. Liberation is to know yourself as Awareness alone ~ the Witness of these.”

~ ~ ~

[After reading verse 3, Sangha member shares how hard it has been lately, even though these words being read in satsang make it seem easy and they ring true, still the challenges seem strong. Ananta responds]:

~ ~ ~

This is exactly what the whole play of the human condition is, in some ways; especially the play of the spiritual seeker is very much like this where when we come to satsang, we come to the presence of a great scripture like the Ashtavakra Gita and it seems so obvious. He said that these are the five tattvas, the five elements. They’re just coming and going. What he implies in that also is that ‘I remain, I am not coming and going’. But when it comes it can seem like it ‘gets me’. When it comes it really seems like it ‘gets me’. And then when I look at something like this [the Ashtavakra Gita] it seems so obvious again that none of this truly gets me in a real way. It gets this play, this aspect of ‘me’.

So that is why. If it was ‘snap, snap’ [Snaps fingers] …, if all that was needed is to read the Ashtavakra Gita once, or one of the verses like this, then we would not need satsang every day. Because the power of conditioning, the power of identity can seem like it has its own momentum. It has been built up. One example I share is that suppose you looked at a photo of Papaji [Poonja ji] and you always thought that that is Nisargadatta Maharaj. And somebody comes and says ‘No, no this is not Maharaj. This is Papaji’. And then you have that satsang interaction for a bit and then you recognize ‘Yes, it is Papaji’.  But next time when you see it, again the concept will come that ‘This is Maharaj’ because for a long time you have picked up the condition that it is somebody else, it is something else.

In the same way, because in this play you have picked up (for seemingly a long time) that we are something that is truly affected by the coming and going of the phenomenal realm, therefore it can seem to take time. But the fact is that every time we have to do the work of picking up the false identity about ‘I’ …, although it can seem very natural; just like for a smoker it can seem very natural to pick up a cigarette and light it, it can seem actually more relaxing that way, more effortless that way. So, that is what is being pointed to, that because it has become a habit to us to pick up the identity therefore it can seem like this. Many report that ‘It just happens’ when this comes. And to them I say ‘Okay, it just happened. It is fine. But at least, now, what is it that you Are?’ And during satsang (even during satsang, just once) if you can come to this recognition, then just like this, you say ‘When I read a verse like this, it is so clear that I am not this’. That much is good Prasad [a gift] for one satsang. That one moment, you see? That one moment. Because that one little bit of insight, that one moment, is cleaning up the false idea.

In the play, what are we moving towards? We are moving towards that place where when these things come, events happen, the interpretation of those comes, then mostly we are just able to let them come and go; if not just laugh at them or something like that.

So, how does it come to that point? For somebody who is over the addiction, when the thought comes and says ‘Would you like a cigarette?’ You say ‘No. Why would I want to spoil my lungs, why would I want to do that?’ In the same way as the mind comes with this offer; the same offer would seem so compelling because of the habit that was built up (over I don’t know how many million lifetimes; you don’t even have to get into those things). So, don’t bother with how long it has been since you picked up this habit. It’s just that we can be grateful at least now we have come to this place where we are looking at this habit. We have some distance from it.

And I know that those moments, those times where it does get picked up, it can seem more intense because our sensitivity is increasing. For somebody who has not (again, I don’t know why I’m using this metaphor) for somebody who has not smoked for a long time to suddenly have a drag from a cigarette would feel very painful, I am sure. Because since our sensitivity is increasing, then when we pick up identification again it can seem more painful, it can seem like it is stronger. Sometimes what happens is (in the design of the play itself) to make sure you don’t pick up any complacency or arrogance, it can seem like my whole life is turning upside down. Events seem to become stronger, the interpretation of these events seem to get stronger.

Many times, we come to satsang expecting our worldly life to improve in some way. May times, we come and we are just squeezed; everything that we believed about ourselves is getting squeezed out of us. But as you continue with this rehab, as you continue with this satsang, you will come to a point (whether we believe it right now or not, we will come to a point) of pure gratitude for all of these events; even that which squeezed us the most.

So, she is very right. When we read Ashtavakra, when we come to satsang and we See (actually, not even these) …, in a moment we can See: The greater aspect of Me is that which is the witness of this entire movement. Most of us in satsang can see this very simply. And yet, for many of us, as we get back into day-to-day life it can seem like ‘Oh, these things!’ Still it gets us.

So, the problem is not so much that it comes and it goes. The problem is not so much that it comes and it goes, the problem is that when it comes, it seems to have a hold over us, it seems to mean something for us, it seems to affect us. or hurt us in some way.

So, as again and again we are clarifying everyday ‘What is this I? Who am I?’ then you see that the one that is affected actually doesn’t exist. It is just a set of sensations, a set of emotions, a set of judgements, a set of interpretations which are playing now within my Being. This is the whole point of Ashtavakra; otherwise Ashtavakra also would have said just one verse and finished with it. So, although the recognition is instantaneous, it is the momentum of conditioning which is getting replaced.

Two or three things that come up about conditioning:

One is that because it has been built up over a long period of time, it can seem like it takes a long time to go. That is why we need to repeat these things, we need to look again and again at what we Are.

Second thing is that because it is like this does not mean that we make a plan about of how to get rid of it. It only means that, in the Right Now, what are you believing yourself to be? It is all about the Right Now. Because actually Right Now you are empty of all conditioning.

This can also sound contrary to what I am saying, but it is not. I will elaborate on this. You are empty of all conditioning Right Now …, but the instant we pick up a condition about ourself, it can seem like we are not just picking up that condition but it can seem like I am picking up my entire basket of conditioning. So, it plays like this. The mind’s game is like this. It is not that when you pick up just this condition right now [For example] ‘I want a chocolate cake’ …, it is not just the ‘I want a chocolate cake’ condition that gets picked up. It is not that ‘I Am just I Am and my only condition is that I want chocolate cake; I am That which wants chocolate cake’. It is not that. When I pick up the idea that ‘I want chocolate cake’ the whole idea of this individual ‘I’ is picked up. This individual ‘I’ already has the sense of separation, it already has a sense of all the previous desires, all the previous grievances, all the opposites of forgiveness, sincerity, kindness, truth; all of that is part of the condition of this ‘I’.

So, there is good news …, and there is bad news. The good news is much greater than the bad news. [Chuckles] The good news is that, in this moment, we start the moment empty of all condition. It is the best news actually. And this is true! It is true until you start to think about it. You remain empty till you start to think about it. In spite of whatever the sensations might be, we remain empty of condition. But it can seem like one condition (‘What does this one say like this? Or, why is this one like this? Why can’t he or she listen to Father properly in satsang…?’) some condition like that and the whole separate identity, the whole idea I have about myself, seems to come back. So, that is the play of the good news and the bad news.

But why is it the best news? Because in this moment again, it is empty; finished. It is like the ‘3-D’ addiction [Duality, Desire, Doership] has already happened, but the thoughts of the temptation keep coming back to us; and this feeling, this idea that [this aspect of] Consciousness itself has that ‘If I pick this up it could have some meaning for me, it is relevant, it is true for me’.

So, that is why these terms like (I shared a lot when we looked at these the first time) when we look at a term like ‘forgiveness’ it can seem like a very normal thing. Everybody says ‘forgive, forgive’. But actually, there is something very deep in that because as we discover what we Are we find this One, this Being, which actually cannot have a grievance. It Sees everything happening within Itself. All is a movement of Its own Light. Or, your recognition could be ‘Not even this I am. I am That which is the witness even of Being, completely unconcerned, untouched by any of this. How can I have a grievance against my own aspect…, which might be playing out as some relationship, or something else?’ So, forgiveness is this kind of free passage. I read somewhere a very beautiful definition of forgiveness is to give thoughts or conditions or grievances about that one free passage. They come and they go. So, they are not about Me. No grievance is truly about You.

That’s why Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] said very beautifully actually (he was talking about some kundalini awakening or something with someone and he said) ‘Why bother with all this? I have given you the self-inquiry which takes care of everything that you have to experience on your spiritual path. So, if Kundalini has to happen, it will happen. If forgiveness has to come, it will come. If lust has to go, it will go. If greed has to reduce, it will reduce’. All of this; just by self-inquiry, just by this recognition of who I truly Am. The only way that Consciousness has designed to make Itself feel like it is suffering is through this identification with thoughts.

So, now what can happen is, as we feel that we are empty now, the mind has a trump card. The mind trump card is what? [Saying things like]: ‘Yes, yes, you are empty now, you are with Ananta, you are reading Ashtavakra, the Guru’s presence is with you, you are empty now; fine… But, what about yesterday? You got so angry with your mother-in-law’ …, or something. [Laughs] So, in that moment, what happens to the emptiness? We picked up a condition which was ‘But what happened yesterday?’ as if there was an individual ‘I’ yesterday which continues here today. So, that is how it works.

That’s why I say ‘Okay, it’s fine. At least in satsang, at least in the inquiry, for a few moments can we remain empty of even these conditions about what happened yesterday, and how is it going to happen after this’. Otherwise, many times it can happen that we are in satsang, but we are still thinking about the past and we are still hoping that something will improve about the future. Whereas all that I am saying is:

What about Now?

What about this Here and Now?

I used to say very often that the arch-nemesis is ‘the checker guy’. The checker guy (you heard of it?) Many of you heard of this ‘checker guy’ who was making this report card about yourself. He is keeping track: today so many enlightenment points; so many stars. [Chuckles] 5-star enlightenment. Today is three demerits, three black dots because you got angry. So, this checker guy, this one who is making the report card constantly, is the one. [Arch-nemesis] Because I say to this one ‘Please, do the self-inquiry’ or ‘Just look at what is Now’. [And the checker guy says]: ‘Father, I am 90% looking at what is Now and 10% looking at what is past’. You see? Any instruction that you give it, it will make it into a checking, it will make it into a benchmark. And this is truly the bane of the spiritual seeker. The spiritual seeker feels like by doing x-y-z, by coming to a particular level that ‘I will come here’. And it feels like (the way we did in high school, the way we did in college, it feels like) ‘I will do it that way’ which is that ‘Okay, yesterday I knew half of World War II. I will start in and now I will learn the rest. I will make progress on my previous insights’.

Here, I say ‘Okay, your most pristine previous insights, awakening experience, can become a part of your spiritual ego. So, remain empty of that. You are complete Right Here, Right Now. The checker guy…, whatever it is saying is meaningless about the reality which you are ‘tasting’ about yourself Now.  And it has just a few tricks up its sleeve. The most important one is ‘Yes, yes, this is fine now, but yesterday, you know, this happened’ or ‘This is good. I hope this doesn’t go away after satsang’. And again, we move away from this and we create a limited identity about ourself, and we want to cater to that one. Forget about that one; it is better. You leave that one to me.

The one that needs spiritual progress, the one that wants to be a certain way, leave that one to me. All that you have to do is follow what I am saying in this moment. If you are in satsang, if you are open to the words of satsang, all inquiry, all surrender is happening; nothing you have to do. So, in satsang, nothing to do and outside satsang everything is my [Guru’s] problem. That is the simplest way to live.

Then if the ‘But’ comes…, ‘but, but, but what about this?’ [Then]: ‘Take it up with my Father. It is his problem, he has told me.’ The mind will come. I am just sharing some of the tricks so that we can see them, we notice them and then we don’t fall for them that easily. The mind will come and say ‘Father was talking about spirituality; he was not talking about the real world. He can’t take care of my life in that way, he can’t pay for the bills, he can’t take care of taking my children taking them from here to there’. But it is not that. There is no ‘real world’ and ‘satsang world’. It’s another very powerful trick of the mind that says ‘Yes, yes, in satsang it is different but when I go to the ‘real world’ or my day to day life then something changes’. Nothing changes. In reality, nothing changes. It’s just that a little bit of the energetic support which you get by being in the Presence of Satsang can seem to not be there at those times…, but actually the reality of You remains unchanged. So, the words of satsang, the surrender, the ‘letting it be’ is applicable whether you are in satsang or whether you are interacting with the grocer or a butcher, it doesn’t really matter.

That is the best part of having a Guru. [Laughs] The best part of having a Guru is that everything is his problem. If we have a Guru, and we continue to make things our problem, then it is like …, you bought the best car for yourself, or you inherited the best car or it was given to you, and still you are hugging and puffing every day to work; walking and running to work. [Chuckles] What is a better example? Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] had a better example. He said ‘To get into the train and to keep running, thinking that I will get to my destination faster, is folly’. So, having a Guru is to get on the ‘Guru Train’. And nothing for you to do, really. And what do I mean by this? Especially don’t check on your spiritual progress. It is not your problem anymore.