BOOKS BY ANANTA Welcome to Satsang with Ananta

Maybe the trouble sometimes is that we made it too simple. It’s too simple. And the mind loves complexity. It’s no fun because I just say ‘All you have to do is not buy your next thought…, and you are Free, Now’.

Can we not buy this one next thought? Is it that difficult?

And then what can happen? Some very glorious thoughts come. ‘Is this freedom?’ No. Not even this one. ‘Can I do this forever? Can I just be like this?’ We buy something, which again makes a pretend person out of us.

The end of suffering is this simple. We cannot suffer without believing a thought. You can try. You have tried.

Just naturally, we can be in pain; there can be this sensation of pain experience in the body. But even this pain we cannot suffer from unless we buy a thought about it.

But it is a thought itself which comes with a lot of doubts. ‘But, but, but what about this, what about my bills, what about my life, what about my plans, what about my family?’ The same old stuff. For thousands and thousands of years, we’ve dealt with the same old stuff. I like to say when we read talks with Ramana from the 1930’s, it’s the same stuff. He could have said 2016 and the questioner could just be there, and the question could be the same. ‘What about my responsibilities? What about my life?’ Where are all those people now? Huh? Gone. The ones that were asking the questions in the 1930’s mostly are gone. So what’s the big deal about their responsibilities and their bills? Same thing here. Another 100 years, all of us gone. Is it really worth it to buy into our thoughts, to go into this temporal realm of personhood, when over and over every day we say ‘Don’t believe your next thought’?

Q: Father, what about…, I was just thinking about the thought, the next thought. What if it’s a happy thought?

A: Yes, I just saw this question (in chat). So, when you check, you will find that you don’t need the happy thought to be happy. Happiness is more natural than that. Just now, you will find that there’s a natural happiness, natural peace, natural joy which is inescapable. The mind itself might come and say ‘But you need the happy ones to be happy’. You see? But this, again, even the so-called happy thought is false, because it is premised on the idea that you exist as a person; and this idea must dissolve. Because as long as we’re believing something which is false, it is bound to lead to suffering, and then we are going through this roller coaster of life, with the ups and the downs. So, we don’t even need our happy thoughts. We don’t even need our happy thoughts to be happy. Happiness is our natural state.

Q: So, what if…, I’ve been noticing I’m happy and then I have thoughts about it. They’re nice thoughts. And then I’m wondering am I supposed to bat them out of the park, like that baseball analogy that somebody posted? You know, they feel good. The thoughts feel good, and they come out of the natural happy place; just like ‘Oh, I’m happy’ and then I have thoughts about it.

A: But if you look at even the happy thoughts, who are they speaking to? You see? So what happens is we are trying to come out of the habit of believing this voice in our head which is pretending to be ‘My’ voice. It’s like saying that if I’m addicted to smoking then can I smoke a certain type of cigarettes, (what are they called? e-cigarettes or something?)

Q: The vapor cigarettes.

A: Electric. So, although they might be helpful, seemingly-helpful, to come out of the addiction, eventually even these must be let go of. So, if you were to give me the choice and say ‘Between terrible thoughts and happy thoughts, what should I believe?’ obviously I’d say ‘Believe the happy thoughts’. But I also have to say that your happiness is not dependent on happy thoughts. And eventually even these have to be let go of because they are not conveying the truth of what You are. And anything that is believed about the false then has the potential for suffering.

So take an example of a happy thought.

Q: Okay, a happy thought is…, I was at the ocean today and I started to watch the sunset. That was happy. It was nice.

A: Yes. Yes. Now what happens is that the experiencing of the sunset and the ocean was happening irrespective of the thought, and even the joy and the bliss or whatever was coming up was happening spontaneously. But this imaginary friend, it wants to come in and participate in this. It says ‘Oh, nice. We’re looking at these things; we’re looking at the ocean and the sunset’. And very quickly, as we start to buy into this, the very next day maybe it will say ‘Oh, maybe the ocean is not looking as clean as it was yesterday’. And because our habit is to buy thoughts, then our habit is to buy thoughts like this also. ‘The sunset…, isn’t the air getting more polluted today than it was yesterday?’ This kind of stuff can come.

Q: Yeah. It’s more cloudy today. Yesterday it was clear; today it’s cloudy. Maybe it will rain.

A: Exactly. It is just like this. The experiencing of the flower: the experiencing of the flower is just the experiencing of the flower. And I don’t need a thought to experience it. Yet you will notice that the thought will try to come up with its opinions about the flower, which are completely not needed to experience it. You see? So the beauty is experienced, and the joy which comes with the beauty of the experiencing is also there. So we don’t need the participation of our mind, truly, to experience any situation in life, good or bad.

So we just watch like this. You can see any object, and how quickly the mind tries to come in with the interpretation and the judgment about it. And you will find that the experiencing of the object is not dependent on what the thought is saying about it.

Q: I’m not sure I can put this in words, but like I’m observing what’s around me, and if there are no thoughts then it’s not pleasant. It’s like ‘Okay, this is nice. Everything is nice. It’s quiet, peaceful. I like my place. I have a lot of freedom in my life…’ You know, I can go on and on about all the nice things. But then it’s like there’s this force-field or something that kind of wants to move in and take over. I don’t know…, something.

A: Yes. Even the confirmations we don’t need. You see? Sometimes it can happen that we can look around at everything, which is just as it is; and mind will come and give a confirmation ‘Yes, it’s so nice. I’m so peaceful. Things are so happy now’. And because we’re used to these mental confirmations, something still relies on getting this. And this can lead to some sort of trouble. I’ll tell you why. Because I’m telling you that ‘You are free now’. Usually this is not accepted because we’re waiting for a mental confirmation also to come: ‘So, he is saying that you are free now. What do you think?’ And the mind says ‘Oh, because he loves you, he is saying this’.

Q: [Laughs]

A: Something…, ‘But you’re not there yet. I saw you outside satsang, and you were so angry and you were so…’

Q: Yes, yes, yes.

A: This mind…

Q: Yes, just an hour ago something was happening like that.

A: Exactly. Because we’re used to waiting for mental confirmation for everything, including our peace. You see? So if you buy the thought ‘Oh, this is so nice, it’s peaceful’ then we are just giving more and more value to this habit; we’re giving meaning to these noises in our head, to this energy in our head, ‘my thought’. And I know it feels a bit wobbly…

Q: It does. It feels wobbly.

A: Even the positive reinforcement or the affirmations which many practice…., when we let go of even these positive affirmations then it can seem a bit wobbly for a while. But this wobbly-ness is the doorway to freedom. A little bit of shakiness. If it is happening, it’s good. Actually they say that in yoga, by the way. [Laughs] Don’t they say that in yoga? …, that ‘If your body starts shaking like this a little bit, don’t worry about it. It’s good’. It’s actually good, letting out some tendencies, some conditioning, something from the body. It’s adjusting.

So, like this, the wobbly-ness can come and if this shaky-ness is there, don’t be fearful of it. You see? Because the mind itself will come and say ‘This is so scary. What’s going to happen to you? You can’t live without your happy thoughts. You’ve been affirming to yourself these happy things and that’s what has kept you sane’. Or something, something; it can keep going on and on.

Q: Yes. It has kept me sane up until now. [Chuckles]

A: Yes, but ‘who, sane’? The thing is that the problem is that it’s always based on the pretense of you, which is not real. And the unreal, the more it is believed in, the more potential for suffering there is. You see? So we cannot be believing our thoughts without picking up the idea that ‘I exist personally’.

And at the root of all of this, (and we must look at this together), at the root of all of this is the idea that ‘I come to satsang to become a happy person, or a certain type of person, a peaceful person, a happy person. This is what I want’. Now, if this idea still remains, then this idea also is going to be squeezed out of you. And this is not a happy squeezing usually. [Laughs] Because we don’t come to satsang…, at least this type of satsang…, to become happy people; not to become shining, happy people or something. We come to satsang to discover that which we truly are anyway, which cannot give meaning to this personal existence; although it is not in resistance to it. There’s a beautiful allowing of all things to appear and disappear. But it cannot believe itself to be personal in any way.

This is the end of suffering. And it is here now.

So, we reinforce the false idea with our belief. And whether the belief is happy or unhappy, the belief is always about ‘the person which I believe myself to be’.

So what is going to happen is that…, for many of us, we come to satsang and initially it seems so happy, there’s more space, there’s more light, there’s more peace, and it feels like ‘This is good’. But as you keep coming to satsang you will keep encountering me asking you who you are. ‘Who are you?’ … ‘Who are you?’ … ‘Who are you?’ You’ll keep encountering this question. But the mind will want to hang onto ‘But I am happy. I’m happy as a person now. Why do you keep asking who are you?’ And something doesn’t like this; there can be some fear which comes with this, something can feel like some stability is getting shaken up. You see?

So that same satsang environment which seemed to give us some happiness, space, peace personally is now seeming to attack this person directly…., seeming to attack this person because this person actually doesn’t exist. And my interest is not in giving you some temporary band-aid. I don’t want to give you some temporary band-aid and say ‘This is good. It feels good’. You see? I want to remove the false. I want to remove this cancer of personhood.

So sometimes it can seem very, very strong; it can seem very crushing to the ego even. And this also must be allowed to get released. But as long as we are believing two voices…, one is the voice in satang, one is the voice of this false teacher that we’ve had inside our head for so long, then it will not be the end of the personhood; it will be the elongation of the so-called spiritual journey. And then a few years later you might be coming to satsang and saying ‘But I’ve been in satsang a few years and nothing has happened. I haven’t found the freedom, I haven’t found myself to be this Awareness that you speak about. I still feel like I’m Lucia or I’m a person’. If we listen to both these voices, then it is the stretching out of this non-existent journey. And it seems to be stretched out in time.

Because right now, without any thought, who are you? That is what we are looking at.

Q: And I don’t know. Right now when you’re asking that, I don’t know.

A: This ‘I don’t know’ is very beautiful ! Don’t be fearful of ‘I don’t know’. In fact, it is the coming from this ‘I know I’m a person’ to the ‘I don’t know’ which seems more difficult in the spiritual journey for most. Because we are so convinced that we are this name and form, that to come to this ‘I don’t know’ seems to stretch out for a long while for many. So if you’re in this ‘I don’t know’ then don’t be fearful of this because this is very beautiful.

Now this ‘I don’t know’ the mind is very scared of. So it might try to give you some candy now, to say ‘Come back, come back, I’m not so bad, I have happy thoughts for you. Come, come’. You see? And in this, it tries to lure you in. Like Guruji [Mooji] says ‘The Mafia says ‘I’ll protect you. I’m here to serve you. I’m here to protect you’. But you try leaving and it becomes very, very scary again.

So don’t buy into this candy which the mind is selling to you. Because it is scared of this ‘I don’t know’. It knows that from this ‘I don’t know’ a true recognition, a true realization will appear. So it tries to take you away from the ‘I don’t know who I am’ back into personhood, saying ‘But now I’m a happy person, and that’s all I wanted’. It’s not true.

Q: It’s not true. No, it isn’t true.

A: Because the urge is truer than that. The urge is to discover what we truly are, which is prior and beyond any sense of happiness and unhappiness. It is accepting. And in this accepting and allowing, there can be a natural sense of peace and happiness, but it’s not personal. There’s nothing personal about this.

Radha was saying just before satsang started that suddenly some sadness was coming and saying ‘How can you be happy? The ego is back’. ‘The ego is back’ means what? It’s just another thought.

Q: Just getting clearer, like before there was never any ego. I don’t know, like, it feels…, like there’s a lot more thoughts than probably a few months back. But the ego is never there as such; never, ever there. But it’s trying to give me that ‘You are attaching more to thoughts’ or …

So, let’s start with not attaching to this thought.

Q: I don’t know exactly what I have to say. I could be in the mind for quite a while, and it feels like something wants to be there; and it’s not nice. But…, I don’t know what’s going on.

So because the ego never existed…

Q: It’s never there. It’s never there.

It’s never there.

Q: But sometimes I feel I’m identifying from operating from a thought, and it’s happening…

Okay, let’s look at this together. What’s the ego? The ego is having the sense of a personal existence. And the sense of having a personal existence is not possible without buying into a thought or a concept of myself.

But even when the concept is bought doesn’t mean that the ego actually comes into existence.

Q: It’s very clear.

It’s very clear. Good. So, just because I’m believing myself to be a cat, does that make me a cat? Now, if belief comes back to all cat thoughts, can you actually become a cat? No. You see? So it is mind itself saying, thoughts themselves saying ‘What are you so happy about? You’re a cat again’. You see, that’s not possible.

Q: I see that’s not possible. I see that I don’t like…, there’s this ‘I’ that doesn’t like being identified.

Okay, so which ‘I’ is that?

Q: That’s what I’ve been trying to find, Father, because this one I cannot really find. But there is a big problem identifying with the one that doesn’t like behaving from the ego; itself is kind of getting into a loop. You see what I’m saying? The person that doesn’t want the person. I’m not able to get out of that.

You’re out of it !

Now, you’re out of it.

Now, you’re out of it.

Now. …

[Laughs]

Q: Then I keep checking ‘Now, now, now’ but it becomes like non-stop all throughout the day. It’s not natural. I’m not complaining. This is what I see, Father. Then there are moment when I, like you say, check with integrity and I see that nobody else is here. And I see that all this Heart wants is to be in Truth, to live as Truth. And then when I’m about running through the day, it’s like again the whole burden of ‘Oh, you’re identifying’…, this identity comes back. But it’s very clear I don’t want to identify.

Who does the identity belong to?

Q: Whom does any identity belong to?

Yes. You say ‘I don’t want to identify, and I’m not happy that belief is going back to thoughts. And there’s so many more thoughts here now. I don’t like it’. So, the one that can get identified is which one?

Q: Just me, just really me.
Which one is that?

Q: Just the one that’s here. I can’t say what it is.

Is it the same one where you say ‘I run about the whole day like this’?

Q: No, it’s not the same one. The one that runs throughout the day feels so constricted because it’s so scared that it’s going to believe thoughts.

Okay. Is there one who is scared? Who is the one who feels scared of thoughts?

Q: [Long silence]

Does the one that has the power of belief…..

Q: This one I don’t like.

Which one? This question you don’t like? Or you don’t like the one who has the power of belief?

Q: [Laughing] The question.

The question. Good. Because to not like God might not be a great idea. [Laughs]

Q: [Inaudible]

Nothing is happening. There is one who has the power of belief. Is there another one who is scared of identification?

Q: It feels like that. I’m going to be very true right now like that.

So, let’s found out: Which one is the true one?

First, let’s see: Who has the power of belief?

Q: [Long silence]

Okay, so the one that is here has the power of belief.

Now who is running scared of this belief?

Q: I don’t want to look at that. Don’t know why.

You must look. This is a good tip. Any time we feel like ‘I don’t want to look at this’….

Q: It feels almost like I’m believing thoughts, and there’s this one that doesn’t want to believe thoughts, and I give more credit to the one that doesn’t want to believe thought.

Yes. Which one is this one that is running scared of thoughts?

Q: [Long silence]

So, the one that does not want to believe thoughts, is that itself not a belief? Can it survive without any belief?

Q: [Long silence] No, it can’t.

So it is the belief itself. This is what one of the subtlest tricks of the mind is. It tries to use even the pointing in satsang as a strategy for itself. You see? So it takes that which is meant to attack the ego as a defense for the ego itself.

Q: It’s a big [inaudible]. It’s the biggest thing it has thrown here. Because belief itself…, you can get out of the mind; and the mind itself takes it up and … [Silence] I see it, Father, but somehow it’s not dropped. You know what I’m saying? I see it. I see the mind playing. But it can just keep playing.

So, let’s drop now?

Q: Right now, it’s not there.

[Chuckles] Then you can’t say it’s not dropped.

Q: Like right now it’s just saying, like in the beginning when we started satsang…

And you still fall for this one? [Chuckles]

If God is…, then there cannot be an ‘I’ which is separate from God.

So those ideas that ‘Oh, there is a God somewhere’ and sometimes there is the idea that ‘There is God everywhere; except me’…., and ‘God is running my life’ or ‘God is doing this to me, or something to me; good or bad’. Already we create a dichotomy where there isn’t any.

So, if there is a sense that ‘God is’ then is it a worthless, powerless God that we believe in? Half-hearted God, half-powerful, or ‘He needs our help’. It’s a very popular concept, actually. God is doing everything but he needs your help. It’s the most arrogant thing maybe that we can say.

So either we see that ‘God is’ and therefore everything is His problem; everything. Or we forget about God. This ‘50% God, 50% me’…, this is what gets us in to trouble. And if you don’t have this sense of surrender, that ‘All That Is, is God’ then no need to force it. I’m not trying to make anyone guilty here. What I’m saying is if that you have this sense that you don’t have this sense that ‘God is all there is’ then forget about God. Find out who You are.

And according to Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi these are the only two way to come to the Self-realization or the direct experience of who You really are. So if there is a sense that there is God, then let everything be God’s. And if you don’t have this sense, then find out who You are. This is the meaning of surrender or Self-inquiry.

But if we have this idea that ‘Oh, there is a God, but when will ‘I’ come to the truth? What is happening in ‘my’ life?’…, then it is not worth it. You see? What is the point of there being a God if [inaudible] your life and your freedom. If there is still ‘God and you’ then what kind of God is that? And when I ask you ‘So what is God?’ [you say] ‘He is everywhere. He is everywhere, He is all encompassing, all powerful, all pervasive’. And where are you? If God is everywhere, then where are you?

Any sense or any idea of separation that we might have is false. No separation can ever happen. If there is a God and there is a ‘you’ then know that it is just an idea that we are picking up. It is not our experience. Our experience here is that God IS; God is Here. That which IS is God, or Consciousness. The Being is Consciousness.

If we remove ideas about what God should be like, then right now you can experience what God IS like. In fact, we are only experiencing God.

So, we can say ‘I Am’ or ‘I exist’…, even that is not original to what I Am, and therefore is ultimately false. This can come from the recognition that ‘I Am-ness’ Itself is having; because Awareness needs to make no proclamations. You see? These concepts of true or false do not apply to Awareness because it is not [inaudible] reality. So if there is a reporting of what is true and what is false, then we are already operating in the relative realm. Already the experiencing is in the relative realm; to say something is true or false in the manifest creation. So it is true that from the Ultimate perspective, even ‘I Am’ is not true. And yet, in the relative perspective, all that we can say is true is that ‘I Am’.

So, Who is this ‘I Am’?

Some of you have come to the realization that even this ‘I Am’ is appearing to That which I Truly Am. But I can say that this is not true for most. Therefore it is important to look at this. Is there anything apart from this ‘I Am-ness’ here in this realm? Is there anything outside of Your Being?

[Silence]

Can Being stop existing right now?
Can you stop being right now?

This is not theory, by the way; this is not theory. When I say ‘Can you stop being?’ don’t think about it. Try it.

Try to stop being. Switch it off.

Is there ever a world without this Being?

Is there any appearance which is not experienced by this Being?

… which is outside of This?

[Silence]

We have mistakenly taken the boundaries…, the sensations of the boundaries of this body to be the boundary of this Being. We have mistakenly taken the sensations which suggest the boundary of this body to be the boundary of our Being. But the body is another set of sensations experienced within this Being.

Everything which is experienced in this manifest universe is only experienced within our Being.

One Being.

[Silence]

Even the idea of space and time are within this Being.

[Silence]

In asking you ‘Can you stop being?’ I am introducing You to Your own Presence.

[Silence]

There is no need to visualize anything, to create anything, to believe anything.

[Silence]

Notice how everything is just an experience for Your Being, just an appearance within Your Being…, the sound of the fan, the temperature of the room; all of these are experienced within You. It does not exist outside of You. Even the imagination of what is seemingly-outside is experienced within You. It has no existence prior to That. The entire universe is resting in Your Being.

[Silence]

Check now and see if anything is outside of You.

[Silence]

Is there anyone here, anything here, besides This Presence, This Being?

[Silence]

Notice how everything is just happening on its own, within this Being. There is nobody here controlling anything at all.

[Silence]

Check and see if there is a separate entity here which has your name.

Don’t visualize anything at all; check really.

Try to find the one who wants freedom.

[Silence]

Check if you can find anyone who has any wants or desires, any needs or aversions.

[Silence]

See how everything that we call the events in our life are nothing but energetic movements within Your own Being.

[Silence]

See how there is nobody suffering from any appearance which is appearing.

[Silence]

Come to terms with Your own vastness.

[Long Silence]

Now when the mind comes and says that ‘something is happening’ to You, notice that it’s all a joke, because nothing can happen to this Infinite Being; and yet all is experienced within This Being.

[Silence]

And when the mind comes and says ‘You must do something, or not do something’…, check that you cannot find the doer, and yet everything is appearing and disappearing in the light of Your own existence.

[Silence]

You are not a good person or bad person, or spiritual person, or a man or a woman, or a seeker of freedom; you’re not a husband or wife or partner. You don’t need pieces of paper or plastic or metal for Your existence.

You Just Are.

[Silence]

You don’t rely on anything in the Universe. It is the Universe which rests in You.

[Silence]

Drop all concepts, all ideas.

The Truth is Here Now.

[Silence]

You don’t need to remember anything at all;

No need for any belief.

[Silence]

The ego is just a belief.

The person is just a belief or a set of beliefs.

[Silence]

What is present is Consciousness, is Your Being.

[Silence]

And even the denial of Consciousness or not…, can only happen within the Being.

[Silence]

You are aware of This Being.

[Silence]

This Awareness is untouched, even by Being.

[Silence]

And even the Beingness in which the entire universe takes birth is only an aspect of what You Truly Are…, This Eternal, Un-nameable, Unchanging Awareness.

[Silence]

You are aware now. Only Awareness is aware.

[Silence]

Only Awareness Is.

[Very long silence]

.

And as we gradually bring our attention back into the world, don’t be so quick to go with what the mind is saying about you. Know that it is speaking about the non-existent one. And in simple checking, You have found Yourself to be This Being…, and ultimately That which is aware even of This Being.

[Silence]

Whatever the mind might say does not apply to This Awareness.

[Silence]

Don’t pick up anything from the past. Let it go. It might call you and say ‘I’m very important. Take me’. But you let it go. Because it is not for You. It is only an idea.

[Silence]

Remain without ideas and concepts.

Know nothing at all.

[Silence]

Don’t even try to know anything now. All mental conceptual knowledge is worthless to You now.

[Silence]

Only True Knowingness remains…, as YourSelf.

[Silence]

This Supreme Intelligence does not need the support of your mind.

[Silence]

You always have been, and remain, This Awareness, This One.

[Silence]

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti

[Silence]

.

Now, whatever the mind is selling you, don’t buy it. If it is saying ‘something happened’ or ‘nothing happened’…, don’t buy it.

[Very long silence]

Don’t run from this silence. Embrace it if you can.

Q: Hello, Father.

Hello.

Q: Yes.

Quick. That was quick. Come, come, come. That’s good.

Q: Father I suffer from mood disorder as I told you earlier, so I don’t feel like going out. I don’t feel like meeting people and I don’t like to do anything basically. So is this is a sign of spiritual evolution or is it depression?

Is there an urge to find the Truth about yourself?

Q: Of course there is, Father, yes.

Or is there a sense of just devotional love arising for the unknown? Or even for some form of a love with no need and no expectations? If either of these are there, or both of these are there, then you can say that you are already on this journey of finding out who you are.

So you don’t have to necessarily correlate it with loss of interest in the outside world or social interaction, although it is very often found that this is the case.  The true test is if there is this urge for Self-discovery, or there is this finding of this devotion…, either to the formless existence or even to some particular forms that you might call God or Krishna or Ram or something like this, see.

So you said already that ‘Of course there is; of course there is this urge for Self-discovery’. Then, then I’m very confident that you’re at the right place. We can find the Self very directly by coming to Satsang.

Now when you inquire what is it you find about yourself?

Q: But Father until the time I see the truth, I realize the truth, it will just be an idea for me.

Okay this is not bad actually; everything I can say ‘Is just a product of the mind until I come to the realization of the Truth’. Okay. So who is the witness to the mind? Is that also the mind?

[Silence]

Because when the mind itself comes and says ‘But everything is coming from the mind’…, then who sees these thoughts?  And the mind is nothing but a bundle of thoughts and similar energies. Who perceives these thoughts? Is that something which is coming and going? Like the mind, like thoughts…, is that which witnesses thoughts also coming and going?

[Silence]

So whether there are thoughts or no thoughts does that mean there is no ‘you’ on the basis of there being a thought or no thought? Do you vanish when the thought vanishes?

Q: Father, where does the ‘I’ go in sleep?

First we stay here. First we started one inquiry. Let’s finish that. I will promise I will tell you that afterwards.

Q: Okay.

So right now we were just looking and we were saying that you said ‘Everything I say comes from the mind’. So I say, let’s use that. Instead of running away from it, let’s use it.

How is the mind experienced? As a thought.

So when the thought comes, that is witnessed. Then the thought goes, that is also witnessed.

So does the Witness also go away with the going away of the thought? Or are you still here, as the Witness?

Q: Yes, the Witness is always there.

The Witness is already here. Now same thing can be said about everything needed; outside appearances, inside…,

[Broadcast interrupted]

So just like this appearance changed, one second Hangout, one second no Hangout; one second all of you, next second all empty, you see? And yet I was here. You see? So at what point do I go? …, when what is taken away…, for me to be taken away. You see? So that is what we are exploring; for That which is the Truth, That which is eternal, which is the unborn, undying one. That is what we are looking for.

So let’s see what is it that can be taken away and yet ‘I’ still remain. So we already saw that outside appearances, whether they are present or not, I am still here. Then we had experiences where there is no sense of the body, see. Actually we are so obsessed with this sense of body consciousness that we don’t realize that we have become aware of the body only when there is a sensation in the body that pulls us in. Otherwise we don’t feel we are the body. If someone comes and pulls your ears now then you’ll become aware of your ear; before that you were not aware of your ear. So the body also can be can ‘go away’, and yet ‘I’ remain.

All thoughts are coming and going anyway, I am still here.

Emotions also coming and going, I am still here.

So this ‘I’ which remains irrespective of that which is appearing and disappearing; this is the ‘I’ that we are discovering. But isn’t it already here? Aren’t you already that?

[Silence]

Is there any effort in this? Is it difficult?

Q: Sometimes, Sir, Father, the thoughts are so powerful that they make it really difficult to see.

Yes but right now, right now. It’s all about the now actually. ‘That which is seen, I am witnessing, therefore I am not that which is seen’.

For now we can work with this simple concept. So what is seen? The outside world is seen and our thoughts and emotions are all perceived, all seen. But you are still here as the Witness of them, isn’t it?

[Silence]

Is this Witness more authentic, more original, more intimate to what you are? Or are these appearances more intimate to what you are?

[Silence]

What’s happening now?

Q: Witnessing.

Say again?

Q: Witnessing.

Witnessing, yes. Now what can trouble this Witnessing?

Q: Father, sometimes there is so much of molestation by the thoughts.

How will a thought molest the Witnessing? Which thought can come now which can actually molest the Witnessing itself?

Q: There are some uncomfortable sensations arising in the body

And?

Q: There’s a Witnessing of them.

Q: There’s a Witnessing of them, but is this Witnessing effected by any of them?

Q: Sorry, I didn’t get you.

There is a Witnessing OF them, but is the Witnessing effected or touched by any of them?

[Silence]

We can check right now and see; don’t go into any projections. Right now you say ‘Some strong sensations are arising’. We can check now. Does this sense of discomfort…, is it happening to the Witnessing?

Q: No, it’s happening to the body.

The body is experienced as some sensations, isn’t it?

Q: Yes.

Who is suffering from these sensations? Is the Witnessing also suffering?

[Silence]

Q: This is very subtle.

Uh?

Q: This is very subtle.

Subtle? It will become very, very obvious actually.

[Silence]

And you will find that actually nothing can make this Witnessing suffer. So anytime I say that ‘I am suffering’ what are we actually saying? ‘That I am something other than This’. But you cannot be anything other than This. Anytime we say ‘Something is happening to me’ we are referring to our self as that which does not exist.

[Silence]

And this checking that ‘I remain untouched, through all of this play of appearances’ is a beautiful checking, even for the Sages. So if something is resisting this checking then notice where the resistance is coming from.

[Silence]

You are coming to the discovery that you cannot be harmed, you cannot be attacked, and you need no defenses. And as you discover this, you’re open, less resistive, a free flow, away from ideas of ‘this must happen and this just not happen, it must only be this way, not another way, why could…, why is this happening to me?’

And you see that as I remain as the untouched Witnessing (no matter how strong the appearance is) then our life becomes an expression of this Freedom.

Okay, my dear, you contemplate this.

Q: Anantaji, may I come?

A: Come, my dear.

Q: In the exploration, I am with the sense of silence. And there is something that wonders if this is Awareness or if there is something being suppressed. So I wanted to ask.

A: Let’s go through it together. In the contemplation you say that ‘There was an experiencing of silence’. This silence means that there were no words there, or there was no appearance there now. What is the meaning of this silence?

Q: There is no thoughts and it’s quiet. It’s extremely…, it’s really, really quiet.

A: It’s extremely quiet.

Q: It’s really quiet. And there is something that gets scared at this point; in this quiet. And I feel it right now in my heart, like ‘Ahhh, help!’ Like something is going help. [Chuckles] It’s too quiet. ‘Help, it’s too quiet’.

A: Before there was quiet, there was a sense of noise in relation to the quietness, it was noisier. You were aware of this noise and then you were aware of this quiet, very quiet. You see? And then you were aware of the appearance of this fear that came along with the message ‘Oh, it’s very quiet. This is scary’.

Now what happened to this Awareness in all 3 of these states? Did it change in anyway?

Q: No. But the fear is really strong right now. Right in this now. It is like ‘Aaah’. And yes, it is observable. The fear is witnessed.

A: So this fear must be allowed to be released right now. Don’t try to control it. Even if you have to scream, it’s okay. So don’t worry about it.

Q: Well it’s almost 11.30 pm here in California so I might have to scream into my pillow so I don’t scare my neighbors.

A: That’s okay, that’s not a problem here sometimes. [Laughter]

Q: It’s very scary. Something’s there; this energy in my heart chakra that is ‘Aaahhh, this is very scary’.

A: So let this fear get released in this way. It’s very good actually. Don’t resist anything at all.

Don’t try to push it away. Don’t try to hide or run away from it. Don’t say that it’s good or bad; anything at all.

Q: There is this shaking…, like I am shaking. It’s very scary. Something there…, it’s just, just, this energy in my heart…, ooh…, scary, scary. And I am seeing it.

A: Yes, yes. You are Aware.

Q: I am Aware of it…, and there is something that wants to cry. It feels like a little girl is inside of me jumping up and down and screaming and crying like ‘I am scared, I am scared, I am scared’.

A: Yes, yes. Let her be, let her be. Let her jump about as much as she likes.

Q: And she is the one saying ‘Help, help! She is saying ‘Daddy, help! I am scared’.

A: We have time. There is no rush. Let all of this flow through you. Don’t resist anything at all. The dropping of prior conditioning is not always pretty, pretty and sweet flavored, chocolate flavored.

Q: I know and I was thinking ‘Ooh, great, this is recorded…, shoot’. But it’s scary. I am just feeling scared. I have hit this place before, I have hit a wall before.

A: There is no wall. There is no wall. Fear is here. Fear is here and you are Aware of the fear already. This Awareness is untouched by this fear. So there is nowhere to go.

Q: There is nowhere to go.

A: Not hitting a wall. It is just allowing things to happen and to see that ‘I remain untouched even in this fear’. It could be just a part of you which is untouched. But actually that is the whole, within which is this small part of the appearance called fear which is just jumping about. Even if it feels a part of you which remains untouched, you see that ‘This is where I am, this is the truth of who I am. This untouched Witnessing of even this’. And this one is not meant to control any appearance; it is not saying good or bad to any of them.

Q: I don’t even know why I am crying.

A: This is very good. There is nothing wrong with crying. Nothing is wrong with crying.

Q: I know. I tell my clients that all the time. I told them that all day today and now here I am crying. [Tears and Laughter] It’s kind of funny. There is such sadness.

There is nowhere to go. Where I am there is nowhere to go. I can’t run anymore. There is nowhere to go. The silence is scaring me to death. I feel the silence. It’s very….

A: The silence is not scaring ‘you’ to death. It is scary for the one that never existed. It is scared of this disillusion of the false identity.

Q: You know, there was a disillusion I started to feel a couple of weeks ago at a restaurant. And I was like ‘Whoa, I can’t do that’. And here I am. This is the fear. I wish I could put my head in your lap.

A: I am here. I am here.

Q: Crying. I don’t even know why I am crying.

A: You don’t have to know anything at all.

Q: I don’t know anything at all. I don’t even know what day it is. I see people smiling and laughing …, I don’t know why. It’s so tangible this silence. I am afraid I am suppressing something because it is so silent.

A: But the silence can never harm you. If there was something that wanted to attack you it would not be this silence.

Q: That would be pretty noisy if it wanted to attack me.

A: Exactly, it is the noisy one that is being attacked or dissolved.

Q: Oh, the noisy one. There is a really noisy one here. She has been here a long time, a long time. [Silence] Now what? What do I do? Help, help, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do here.

A: See this one wants to engage in some way, it wants to break the silence in some way. But as long as you keep coming to satsang you will find the silence is inescapable.

Q: You know what, the very first time I ever saw you, it was after Rishikesh and somebody had posted on the Mooji Sangha facebook group about the silent retreat. I had never heard about you, and I thought, I said ‘You know, what the heck’…, because I was still in the Rishikesh mood. I went to your first Silent Retreat, you know, the first night. (Well, it was night for me; it was your Saturday morning, my Friday night).

And first of all, you are sitting in this chair just relaxing. I was like ‘Who is this guy?’ first of all, ‘Just chilling out’. I am used to Mooji being like ‘Waaaahhh’ [Full Power]…, and you were just chilling out.

And then the second thing was I could not understand a word you were saying, and I was like ‘Oh my God, I have to study his India accent’. To me this Indian accent…, aaah…, I couldn’t understand you. You know? I know a lot of Indian people, there are a lot of Indian people around here, but I could understand you at all.

And the third thing was the Silence, the silence scared me. I was like ‘Oh my God, it’s so silent’. I could not bear it, I couldn’t stand it the first night, so I shut it down.

And I went to some of your videos so I could start to understand how you spoke. And I came back the next day and it was like ‘Ahhh! I can’t stand the silence’. More silence than anything I have ever experienced, even with Mooji; hard to believe.

And then by the third night or so I fell in love with you. So…, [Laughter] And then it was okay, the silence was okay. I think I could deal with this. It was just like I had to train my ear how to understand you. I don’t know what my problem was before.

It was the silence that drew me to you. First it scared me to death and then it was ‘Okay, I am hooked’.

As soon as I stop talking, in this minute there is some silence. How do I be silent and then talk at the same time. Is it possible?

A: Once you get used to the silence then all talking can come from there. It doesn’t break any silence, you see. This talking, which is only the intuitive Presence which is speaking, is not in any opposition to any silence.

Q: I was thinking today when I was at work…, I had many clients today, they were very noisy and I was trying to be silent. I was trying to be quiet in my head and just be there and I was thinking ‘How am I going to be silent with all these really noisy persons?’ How do you do it? How do you do it? I mean, I am asking you ‘How do you do this, Anantaji?’ Apparently you are silent and there are a lot of us noisy ones. [Laughter]

A: All of this comes on its own very naturally with the recognition of the Self and the allowing of this simple Presence to unfold in its own way. When there is no sense of control, when there is no sense of even how silent or noisy it must be, when all of this is left to Grace, then there is no trouble in any of this actually.

Q: I read a quote today about…, a Rumi quote. Someone asked Rumi ‘Rumi you speak so often about silence and yet you speak all the time’. And he said, (I am paraphrasing)…, and he said ‘The silent one has never spoken’. Something like that.

A: Very beautiful.

Q: Thank you for your Presence, I love you very much.

A: Thank you my dear, I love you, too.

I know very much first-hand how this can seem fearful, this silence. Some of you know this story, one day actually, (or at least sometime before I met Guruji), it happened one day that I resolved not to leave the self-inquiry until I discover the Self. Because Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] had said ‘You do the Self-inquiry and you will find the self, and don’t leave it until you do’. One day I said ‘I will do it! I don’t care what happens’.

And I sat down: ‘Who Am I?’ and just a very beautiful Self-inquiry. Thoughts came: ’Who?’ Everything that came: ‘Who is the witness of these?’

And after a while everything became so silent. Just quiet. And there was a sense that a long time had passed in this silence. And I could sense that some fear, like you say, started to come. And the message that it told me was…, this fear started to say ‘Stop this now. I will give you a good life’. ‘Stop this now, I will give you a good life’. [Laughter]

And then the double, the combo punch was it said ‘Deal!’ You see? So the mind itself said ‘Stop, I will give you a good life’ and itself said ‘Deal!’ And it got scared and got out of the inquiry.

And there was so much guilt. ‘See? Now you were discovering the Self, everything became so quiet and yet you made the deal with the devil; got sold to the devil’. This kind of stuff, this nonsense started coming. Yet the offer and the acceptance of the offer were both the mind. I was still only the witness of it.

So that is why the Presence of a living Master is so beautiful in our life, because all this  nonsense is not picked up, all this play can be discarded very easily.

So then it became clear that all of the mind tricks can be very tricky actually. And it uses all fear, every appearance possible to convince you, to bring you back into your personal identity. It can even use Advaita, it can even use knowledge questions.

Q: How does it do that?

A: Just by giving you these deals; it gives you these deals in the mind. ‘Okay, now this a good opportunity to ask this question’. Or just distracts you away from this sense of dissolution; just gives you some new lollipop. You know?

Q: Thank you, thank you for doing this.

A: Welcome, so welcome, my dear.

Q: Thank you for your energy and devotion. So very much appreciate this.

Q:  Father, I think here it is still a ‘someone’ trying to get something…, an end to suffering. Because I noticed recently there was expectational love not devotional love. And also the feeling is more to end suffering, not motivated by finding out who I am. Felt to expose this, Father. Actually, no; still just the belief that the someone exists.

If we can say that there is some motivation in the beginning of this spiritual search for self-discovery, the most common motivation is this one…, ‘I don’t want to suffer anymore’. Most spiritual paths are full of practices and concepts and teachings which help us come to the end of suffering. In satsangs like these, they’ve come to this directness where we can say that the root of suffering, the cause of suffering, is only the belief in an idea about myself. And how do we give this belief to ideas about ourself? By believing our thoughts.

No idea about myself is really about my Self; not about my true Self. All ideas are about this personal identity. So anytime we pick up an idea about ourself we are picking up some personal identity because all ideas are personal. Even the idea that ‘I still only want freedom from suffering, and not Self-discovery’ is an idea about who? It’s about an entity, a seeming-entity which does not exist.

So you say that ‘Here it is still a someone trying to get something’ and what you mean is that you are believing in the existence of this ‘someone’…, which you yourself said is just a belief that this ‘someone’ exists. But there is nobody like this. There is nobody called ‘Shivani’. There is nobody called ‘Ananta’ in reality. And we’ve looked and we’ve looked and we’ve looked for this somebody and we’ve found that it does not exist. So how can this no-existent nobody come to the end of suffering? Because suffering is only the idea, the belief, that this nobody actually can come into existence.

And as long as we buy into the existence of this ‘somebody’ then it is bound to come with some expectations. What should this somebody’s life be like? What should he or she have in their life? What should not come, what should come? The belief in my existence as a ‘somebody’ is the root of all suffering. And we’ve checked so often now, we know this. And we are finding ourself to be this nameless, formless One.

So, upon looking, we don’t find this one which wants something or doesn’t want something. And we find our Self to be this nameless, formless One. Every day, this is what we find. Because we see that all appearances are appearing to That One which is nameless and formless; just the Awareness Itself.

This is the comedy of life. We never find the one that we always presume ourself to be. And the One that we truly find every time we check, we are in constant denial of That. Never find the person. If I tell any of you ‘Let’s find the person’…, looking, looking; it’s so much hard work and you still don’t find. And yet that gets allegiance. And That which we do find…, we look at all that is appearing, we find that ‘I-Am-Here-as-Awareness-Itself’ which is untouched by any appearance, This we want to deny because there is so much belief in the identity.

So, satsang is where we come to break this belief in the false identity. And we’ve become so used to just mental confirmation that even after checking this and finding no person here, and finding only this Awareness as what You truly are, the mind will come and say ‘Oh, but I still don’t know if this is true or not for me. I still don’t know if I’m there yet. Am I really seeing this to be true?’

Yes! This is Your experience, whether the mind confirms it or not; You are primal Witnessing of all appearance, there is nothing that anyone can do about this fact. It is the truth. It is reality.

Q: Father, it was just when you said earlier about the two reasons for being here in satsang is usually the devotion, or the wanting to know who am I…, it felt that neither of those felt to be the reason.

But I know that both of these are true for you. So, don’t buy this story.

Q: It feels more there is an underlying annoyance of a feeling of suffering which feels like the motivation.

Yes, yes. This actually also we can add to the valid reasons to be in satsang; that we want to come to the end of suffering. And once we want to come to the end of suffering, then that activates the urge for Self-discovery…, to be free from that. And as long as we’re not buying an idea about ourself, we are already free from that.

The end of suffering is always Right Now. As long as we are buying some idea about the future, it is not the end of suffering. The end of future suffering is not what we are talking about. Right now it is impossible for you to suffer unless you believe a thought about yourself.

Do we see this to be true? Or no? Right now, unless we pick up an idea, we cannot suffer. Even if the body is in pain, you cannot suffer. And nobody can force you to pick up an idea. Nobody can force you. You see? It’s just that there seems to be some sort of addiction to ideas and that’s why we come satsang to withdraw away from these ideas. And in this kind of withdrawal, you can have all kind of symptoms initially and say ‘I can’t live without these ideas of myself. What will happen to me in the future? You’re not telling me how my life is going to be. There’s so much fear here’. All of these are the words of addiction.

Once you’re free from this habit of consuming thoughts, then you find there is nobody here that can be hurt by any appearance in this Universe. Even by the end of the Universe, You cannot be hurt.

[Silence]

The end of suffering is not personal. It is the end of the person identity which is the end of suffering. So, the end of suffering is not a personal gift. It cannot be received personally. It cannot be given personally. It can only be pointed to.

A: From the beginning of when the satsang started here, I have not really retained anything much which is being shared, in the sense that if you asked me when the satsang gets over ‘Can you do a re-cap and tell me what all the main points were of what you shared?’ I find myself unable to do that. I don’t have any memory of this. You see? So I will rest in Guruji’s [Mooji’s] words where he says that ‘This whole process of satsang is to by-pass all of this mind and memory, and truly is Consciousness having a monologue with Consciousness’. You See?

So nothing needs to be remembered from here. Whatever is needed to be done while you are here is happening on its own. And I know that while you’re here, you are checking, you’re looking for yourselves. So I don’t find that you’re just mentally listening to just concepts to yourself, which is very good. So, I have to say nothing more needs to be done. But if you feel like reading from Nisargadatta Maharaj from Sri Ranjit Maharaj from Siddharameshwar Maharaj; nothing, nothing is wrong with that. It’s very beautiful. It won’t take away anything from what you’re seeing for yourself. There’s no trouble with any of that if you’re drawn to reading from that, if you want to hear/read from that; no trouble. It’s good.

Q: The only thing is that they go deeper into each layer. You know, the gross body, the subtle body, causal body and all that stuff; which body from the ‘I Am is arising’ and all that stuff. The thing is that the teachings of Maharshi Ramana is very simple, it’s very simple and no hassles, no burden, nothing. While there is a tendency to go deeper and it is coming from the mind itself. The mind itself it is coming from; because it wants to grasp more and more, and it’s a kind of a ‘Neti-neti’ [not-this] also. You read something, you acquire something and then you discard something: ‘I’m not this, I’m not this and I’m not this’. Because knowledge is coming from ignorance, and ignorance does not exist. So the knowledge also does not exist; you are beyond both. So finally you will say ‘Neti, Neti, Neti, I have acquired this knowledge but this knowledge I am not’.

A: Yes

Q: So, if you say ‘It is fine to read’ then I will read. Anyway I will not retain anything; it will be a good fun time-pass.

[Both Laugh]

A: If it feels light, if it feels joyful, if it feels peaceful; because you said ‘I feel drawn to read them’. Now when I heard ‘Drawn’ I felt like you are saying like this ‘That it gives me a lot of peace, joy to read these things, it feels good to read it’. But if you feel like it’s adding to some mental burden or it just becomes an intellectual exercise, then no need to read. You see?

Q: Okay, Okay.

A: You see, you have that much discretion now. You are able to tell the difference between these two things, so I’ll trust you on that. If you feel drawn naturally, intuitively, to read these things there’s nothing wrong with that, but you don’t have to make work out of it. It’s not to be mental. No need to add any burden to yourself.

Q: Yes, I think that I will not read them, because it is more, you know, coming from the mind. That pulling is also from mind itself. ‘No, no, no, you still have to read, you still have to grasp, get clarification’…, all that stuff is coming. If I just be my natural state then I don’t need anything like that.

A: Yes. You don’t need anything else.

Q: Yes. Bhagwan, [He calls Ananta Bhagwan], the reason actually I got pulled to these books are that I am still trying to find something, you know? The mind is still trying to find something beyond the Awareness.

[Both laugh]

It is not satisfied actually at the Awareness because when you say ‘I am Awareness’, the mind says ‘There is no I, and there is no ‘Am’. And anyway, you’re transcended so how can you be ‘I Am Awareness’? But that is a way of the expression? Of course, otherwise then how do you express?

A: Yes.

Q: So the mind is still trying to figure out ‘Is there something there?’

A: Actually what is happening also in the Sangha is that we are going through this beautiful phase of contemplating this together, you see? Where it seems like some of us are saying ‘How can you say there’s a Knowing? There is no Knowing, Nothing Is’. And I am saying that ‘Even to know that there is Nothing, there is this Knowing’

So we are having this collective contemplation, (which I am very open to having actually), and we are looking together at this because we are exploring all these ideas about Knowing, about Being about True Awareness, Knowingness. What is it that we really mean by these terms is being checked from our direct experience now, you see? So I for one am enjoying these contemplations very much and I am very open to them.

So we are having a lot of fun with this, just to look at this. Because actually now if you are to look at both the points of view, you will find that one point of view is there is nothing at all, not even Awareness. There is nothing, everything comes from this Nothing. You see?

So then we have to look at this ‘There is nothing at all’ and say ‘Do I know this from direct experience that there is this nothing? Is it my insight? Or is it only mentally that I am saying there is nothing at all?’ You see? So what I am finding from here, (and I have to only speak that), is that ‘This that is here, as my most original, is this ‘no-thing’ which is not an appearance…, and yet there is a Knowing if it. This Knowingness itself I Am, prior to I Am.

So don’t get confused with that; we’ve crossed that. ‘I Am’ comes later that much is obvious to most of us now.

So this Knowingness which is non phenomenal, not an appearance, which is no-thing, is what remains. You see?

Therefore the only point of distinction then left is that to say that this no-thing is unaware. But there must be Awareness to know that there is such a no-thing. That is where the contemplation is happening actually.

You see? So for me it seems just mental to just say ‘Oh, but there is nothing, I just know this’. You see? But we are not even saying ‘I know this’. We are saying ‘It’s nothing. But I don’t know this’. [Laughs] I don’t know what we are saying actually.

So when we say that there is nothing it automatically implies that ‘I know there is there is nothing. I am aware of it that there is nothing’. You see? So even this no-thing is aware of itself being no-thing. You see?

So the only trouble with this ‘Prior to Awareness’ business is that it’s very attractive to the mind. And I’ve been saying that something just wants to hold onto this because we feel like ‘Oh, this is the ultimate Truth I can get to’. You see? It’s very attractive. ‘Yes, I found That, which is prior even to Awareness’. But then did you really find or are you imagining it?

The real finding would mean that ‘I Know This which is prior to Awareness’. But this Knowingness Itself IS Awareness. So how did you go prior to Awareness?

I don’t know if any of this is making sense to any of you but I feel that for some of us who are contemplating this, this can be useful to look at.

To be able to say anything at all, (like I told Anil ji also on Facebook), to be able to report anything at all…, when we are reporting with integrity, I must know it from this Awareness of it, a direct experience of it. Or…, I must know it as a mental concept. In either of those two, the Knowingness is unavoidable, you see? We cannot deny the existence of this Knowingness.

At least this is the way I see it. And I’m open to continuing this conversation and to look together; and say ‘How can we say anything at all, including that there is nothing, without Knowing it? Then we are just making up stuff by the way.

I’m just saying that ‘Tell me how we can say something without the Knowing of it? We must be Knowing that there is to say that there is nothing. Therefore the Knowingness was present, along with the nothing. Therefor the nothing itself must be Self-knowing, must be Self-aware. You see? So this Awareness is present…, which I find is undeniable at this point.

But those of you who are contemplating this can listen to this stuff again. For those of you who this is making no sense, just forget about it.

But I enjoy very much, because for me, it is not like I am being attacked or something like this. I can see that it can seem like that, that ‘Some Sangha members are saying exactly the opposite of what you’re saying’. But even in this I am not feeling a sense of attack, (at least not yet). Because I am able to see that it is coming from this sense of experiencing this to be true. Nobody is just saying things just to say them. There is this sense that ‘I know this to be true’ and that is why it is being said; and that is what I am also saying…, that there is a Knowing of this to be the Truth:

This Knowingness itself is Awareness.

Q: Father, I always see that I’m trying to witness the thoughts and feelings, and then I create a mental image of somebody witnessing and something going on on the other side. Sometimes I feel like I can see those moving, like I can observe thoughts, feelings, emotions and everything. But sometimes I really get pulled to the voice which is kind of going on inside my head.., it feels like if I am the one thinking and I am the one kind of witnessing it. Still it feels like a mental image of somebody witnessing it and something is going on. So could you please help me on this? Like maybe I’m not clear in some parts or something, like I’m still identified with some thoughts about myself.

Yes, we can look at this. This is good. So firstly, when you say that ‘I try to …’

Q: Witness; like aware of my thoughts and feelings…

Actually, this is more effortless than the mind can understand, because most naturally you are aware of your thoughts. If you were not aware of them, they would not mean anything at all; they would not even appear. So you cannot be unaware of your thoughts. So, the Witnessing is already present in a very primal way. You don’t have to make any effort. So what you really mean is that you’re trying to get some control over your attention.

Q: Yes.

We don’t have to work so hard at it. For some of you, it’s very natural to withdraw your attention from thoughts, and for those, it’s okay. But here, for example, even here I could not actually pull my attention away from thoughts and try to keep attention one pointed or something like this. It’s very rare to have that kind of mastery over attention. That’s why most are very frustrated actually with spiritual practice, because most spiritual practice is trying to control your attention; to go beyond this. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t work, and this up and down of spiritual practice then happens.

So, just effortlessly allowing all thoughts to come and go, then you’re very naturally the Witness already.

Q: So isn’t it, Father, like initially it needs a little bit of practice, or it’s something like…, because for me if I try to be effortless it looks like I’m trying to put effort on that.

Yes. It’s like this. So, right now, if I can say ‘Just allow everything to happen’ it can seem like a little bit of effort is needed to just come to this allowing state, you see; which is fine; this much is fine.

So, if you allow everything to come and go now, (including the movement of your attention can be allowed; let attention also move everywhere), then in real time, you tell me what happens. How do you get stuck?

Q: Father, I was doing it, like, today…

No, just now, let’s do it together. And in real time, tell me how and where you’re getting stuck.

Q: Sure.

Just allow all thoughts to come and go. Don’t serve them tea. And then allow your attention also to move about. [Silence]

Q: Actually when I’m trying to do it with you, I don’t get any thoughts actually. I’m thoughtless, completely. Even if I’m trying to get some thoughts, it looks like, I’m trying.

This is actually very natural. When we allow, in fact welcome, our thoughts, invite our thoughts in, then it seems like thought activity reduces. When we say ‘Okay, mind, Mr. mind, please bring it on. What do you have?’ then you find that it runs out of all that strong energy, mental energy.

Q: Yes. So, it’s kind of like when I’m more alert, like when I’m trying something, it’s more like none of the thoughts are coming up. If I’m tired, then I don’t see any thoughts. It’s kind of like when I’m trying ‘Let’s see’ then I’m aware. Then it will come. But now it’s not happening that way, Father, now.

The good news is that it’s always about the Right Now. It is not about what has happened in the past or what is going to happen in the future. Freedom is always Now. We’ll not be free in the past nor in the future. But in the Now, you’re always free. That’s why I’ve been saying recently that ‘The Now Is my best friend’.

But what happens is that what you recognize about yourself Right Now, you also see that this cannot change. So it’s not some sort of trick where we get you into satsang and in satsang we do some magic and every thought activity.., everything reduces so that it feels like you are free; and then the minute you leave satsang then everything is gone. It can feel like that because the energetic support is going. But actually what you recognize about yourself Now, you also recognize that this is true; irrespective of what layers of thoughts come and what layers of emotions come, at the core, at the center, this is always true what you’re finding out about yourself.

Q: Yes.

So, let’s use the Now to come to the recognition of who you are. And then you will find that belief is not going to the thoughts as much as it was earlier.

Belief means that there is a possibility that what the thoughts could be saying is true. If there was no possibility at all, then you would not believe them. If I was to say ‘You are levitating 5 feet above the ground right now’ you would not believe it because you know there is no possibility of that. So, the same way, as you see that You are the formless One, then all this thought that is talking to you as if you were a person will start to seem more and more alien to you. And at best, you will laugh at them.

Q: So, Father, I see that earlier I used to identify with everything, whatever is going in my head, like sad, happiness, whatever. But now, it’s kind of like if I see some images or if I see some voices of some other stuff, I usually can recognize it, I can easily discard them. But when there is a voice, like my voice, pretending to be.., it’s very subtle, it’s kind of like always with me; as if like my guidance, my guide. It’s like me and myself; talking with myself, like self-talking. I usually get too much cling with that part, which is like my guide, my inner guide.

The voice of the mind has pretended to be our teacher for a very long time. And most of humanity is relying on this voice as the guide, for guidance on how to run our life. But this is not the True voice, this is not the intuitive voice. The voice of the mind is always selfish; ‘What’s in it for me. How do I get freedom? How do I become a better person? How do I do the practice?’ You see? The individual sense; who is the ‘I’ being referred to as you? Where is the ‘I’ that needs freedom? Where is the ‘I’ that needs to not identify also?

Q:  Yes, because I was watching your satsang about that ‘I’ and I was contemplating on myself, but I found that ‘I’ cannot be located. I found myself like…, everything is just happening by itself, like my breathing, like my heart beat, like my… But my person in total? I didn’t find that one. Because it’s kind of like building blocks together and making a person actually. It’s nothing. There is a kind of a different person doing everything but I felt like if I’ve joined like parts and parts together, and there is no such thing as myself. I could not find myself …, then I felt like I’m headless and I’m just walking like something; even if I was driving, or I was walking, I was feeling like as if I’m floating somewhere; like I can’t anymore identify myself with the body anymore. But something still inside the head; like the ‘I’ was pretending my voice, (like ‘you should not’ and ‘how come you..’) I easily get so much hypnotized. Like then I say ‘If I discard this one, there where is myself? I mean, I’m lost completely’. Where is it? I’m not my body…

Yes, even this…, that if I lose my mind that I will lose myself is also the thought from the mind itself. But you see…, you also say yourself that ‘No thought is coming’ but You are still here. So you haven’t lost yourself. Just by losing of the thoughts is not the losing of the Self. It is the mind which tries to create this fear in you. You see?

So what has happened is that we’re used to relying on this one teacher inside our head seemingly. Then when we come to satsang, for many of us it seems like ‘No, the voice in my head is not the true teacher. It is the voice that I am hearing Now, the intuitive Presence, the voice of my own Heart; this must be my true teacher. And for a while it seems like there is a tussle between the two teachers.

Why are we here? This has been the hottest year in Bangalore that I can remember. I’ve been here almost 20 years, and yet some of you are away from your nice & cool environments and you’re here in this heat of Bangalore, and mostly with this air conditioning not working well. Why are we here?

Is it because we like each other’s company? Is it for that? [Someone in audience says something inaudible]. For ‘garbage disposal’ services? [Laughs] Na.

Truly, why are we here? To discover who we are. Isn’t it at least a little ironic to find out who we are? ‘I go there to find out who I am’. But I must already be here, even to find out who I am. How can this trick be played in this way, that to realize the Self Itself we need some pointing, we need some arrow marks back to our own Self. But Self means what? What I Am.

There are millions of people struggling for this Self-realization, to find out who they are? Isn’t it at least a bit funny? Not from a judgmental place; having been there myself for many years I can say it.

So, what if we make a deal today? What if we make a deal today and say that til we find out who we are, til we come to clarity about who we are, we don’t leave from here. Today’s the last satsang…, ever. Not just with me, suppose today’s the last satsang ever. Because one of the mind’s most primal tricks is to convince you that ‘You are not there yet. You are not free yet. You haven’t got it yet. You haven’t seen the truth yet’. And many of us have ideas that ‘…Just that final cliff, I have to jump off.  I’m just not jumping off the cliff. Can you push me off the cliff?’…, these kind of things. Why must we jump off a cliff to find out who I am? Is there an ‘I’ waiting for us to jump off and catch? Why must I need to take a single step to find out who I am? Is there an ‘I’ waiting for us at the end of that step? Or isn’t it the ‘I’ which is already here? Who is this One that is already here? Who is truly here? Can we promise to look at that today?

So, let’s go step by step. Is there anyone who feels like they are not here? …, that they are somewhere else and they must be found?

[Someone’s child in hangout raises her hand]

She feels that. [Chuckles]

Q: [Inaudible]

You feel you are not here, and you must be found somewhere else. Yes? It’s okay to say.

Q: [Inaudible]

You’re only there [touches his head] and you’re not here [touches his heart]. Then who is here? He says ‘I’m only in my head, I’m not in my heart’. Then who is it in the heart? How do you know that there is a heart in the first place? When you say you’re only here [touches his head] and you’re not here [touches his heart] are you implying your attention; which means ‘My attention is only in my mind, therefore I am only in my mind?’ Is that what it means?

Q: [Inaudible]

You’re carried away. But what is carried away?

Q: Attention.

Attention goes…, but who is attention reporting to? Is it reporting to You? Or to somebody else? This ‘I’ to whom attention is reporting is which one?

Q: [Inaudible]

The feeling is there…, and attention goes to the feeling, then it feels like attention is here. But even then, attention is reporting back to who? Is it reporting to somebody else, that this feeling or that feeling is here? Or is it reporting to You? That you to which the attention is reporting, is it in the head or the heart…, or the legs? Does it have a location? [Silence]

That which is aware of sensations…, where is that one? [Silence]

[Chuckles] I hope none of you are meditating. It can be a distraction when you’re in satsang. Because we are looking together, and just when we come to this point when we are finding out ‘Where am I?’…, something comes and says ‘This is so peaceful. I should meditate’. And some mantra might start or something. At one point, even that is a distraction. We’re looking together, no? Look and see for yourself who you are. So don’t waste time meditating right now. [Chuckles] She’s like ‘Who says this kind of stuff?’ [Laughs] It’s okay, it has its time and place, but this is not it.

Right now we just said ‘Where is the attention reporting to?’ We say ‘I notice the outer world. I notice my emotions, sensations. Attention is going to this. It’s going to the mind vs. the heart (he was saying)’. This attention…, where is it reporting to? What does this one look like?

Q: It doesn’t have a face.

It doesn’t have a face. Very good. So, if it doesn’t have a face, does it have anything else; any other attribute? Any color, shape, form?

Q: Seems to be everything and yet nothing.

Seems to be everything and yet nothing. And is it separate from you? And is there anywhere where this IS and you are not? Is there anywhere where you are, and this is not? Now, what is That one saying? What can That one be upset about?

Q: [Inaudible]

She says ‘That one doesn’t talk, Father. That one is always just peaceful and relaxed’. So, no drama at all. How boring is that? [Laughter]

You say that ‘It is not separate from I’. So this is your direct seeing. Now, the one who is not like this, who is upset and involved with the things of the world; who is that one?

Q: [takes mic] Father, what was your question?

This one…, you say that ‘This one that is always here, is everything and nothing together. I find no separation between itself and I. I am everywhere it is; it is everywhere I am. This one is always too calm, too relaxed, has no stories, is not concerned about anything. Okay. Now, who is the one who IS concerned about all this?

Q: Father, it seems that this one who is concerned about everything… Yesterday there was this…, when I was coming for satsang there was this Seeing from this place of Awareness. There was a lot of grief while coming for satsang, and there was the Seeing the grief. And it was a very subtle kind of feeling that Consciousness is enjoying even that grief. And that one is not me; it’s just playing; like you say.

So, is there another one?

Q: No, but there’s this big one who is pretending to be this small one. There’s just one; there’s just the Awareness that is pretending in different forms to play, it seems.

So, can something really upset you, in reality?

Q: Father, but No, in reality…, you always say that. But when the attention goes into a belief, and grief and all that happens, then obviously there’s suffering.

And Consciousness is enjoying even that?

Q: Yeah, that’s true.

It’s just like going for one of these tragic movies.

Q: That’s true, Father. It feels like there is a subtle…, it’s like a palatable enjoyment that I felt was happening.

[Laughs] Why this grief, coming to satsang? ‘Oh, I was feeling so much grief coming to satsang. I’m coming to meet Father again’.

Q: The grief was on a different subject. And it was almost sweet; that grief. Does it make sense? Or is it my mind?

Yes. No. Because it would not appear in this realm of appearances unless there was joy even in that.

Q: But… [Silence] … in a sense it’s an addiction then, that grief?

Yes, it could be an addiction…, IF you could be a person. But for God nothing can really be an addiction, although this [satsang] itself is a rehab for God Himself…, run by God Himself. But pretending to be addicted, and God pretending to point the way out from this addiction.

Q: So, it’s okay, that addiction, and it’s okay; satsang will look after that addiction, in a sense?

Yes, we can say it like that. Because nothing can survive Satsang; the Truth. In the light of the Truth the false cannot survive. So as long as you remain in satsang with openness, then this light will take care of this which is just conditioning or false ideas.

We find many times that when you come to the realization that ‘There is nothing in satsang for ‘me’ personally’…, (some of you are here for the first time; sorry, I have to give you the bad news right in the beginning)…, that there is nothing for you personally here; you will not get anything, there is no joy, bliss, peace available to you here…, then what are we doing here? [Silence]

There is nothing available. There is only a mirror here. There’s nothing I’m giving you. I only have a mirror. But this mirror …, (we can say; I’m just painting an analogy for you)…, is the only mirror which shows your non-phenomenal reality. It basically means that it shows you that you are not a thing, you are not an object. You don’t exist in atoms and molecules, you don’t exist in energies; although all energies and atoms and molecules are made up of You. You are That from which all of this comes So I have this kind of mirror.

But who really wants that?

So as long as we have this sense that ‘I want something so that I can be a better person or a happier person, a peaceful person’ or something, we are going to be disappointed in satsang. Because this is not that type of satsang. Those might come, as by-products. Sometimes the by-products are frustration, grief, anger. You see? But all these by-products are also welcome.

But truly, what we are discovering our Self to be is that which is just this simple Awareness, the Witnessing of all appearances. And yet it is un-seen phenomenally.

If these words sound too difficult, too abstract…, but soon, if you hear it with openness, you will find that ‘He’s speaking the most obvious things; the most obvious thing’. It’s very simple:

Who witnesses all that is witnessed?

Who sees all that is appearing?

It’s not a difficult question. The mind will get in the way; it even gets in the way by offering answers. But even the mind cannot fathom this reality. For this, we must look for ourselves.

Who witnesses my thoughts? Okay, let’s do this together.

Who is the witness of the thoughts?

And the witness of the space between the thoughts?

Is that also coming and going?

Or it is the unmoving, unchanging witness which watches the movement of these thoughts?

[Silence]

Are you not witnessing your thoughts? Is it somebody else?

[Brief interaction where sangha replies ‘Are you witnessing your thoughts? ’]

And who witnesses that sometimes there are no thoughts; the space between thoughts?

Q: [Inaudible]

You do. What does this ‘I’ who is the witnesses of thoughts and the space between thoughts…, what does this one look like?

You know it is You. You already know it is You. It is only You, actually. The one sitting next to you is not the witness of your thoughts. This one who is witnessing thoughts; what does this one look like?

Even for the question ‘Who is witnessing them?’ …, is there anything personal about this Witness?

Does it have desires or needs?

[Repeats answer from sangha]: No.

Does is have guilt, frustration, pride, regret, remorse? Any of this stuff?

[Repeats answer from sangha]: No

How do you leave there?

In the next instant, in this instant, anything can happen; absolutely anything can happen. Not to start the week on a terrible note or something, but there could be a nuclear disaster in India and all of us could be wiped out without any sense of what happened. This moment it could happen. Or in this moment, the most glorious seeming experience can appear; that you are in heaven, which is unchanging. All that we have invested in the life of this person, (seeming person), can be blown to bits any moment. Therefore, those who are wise, even phenomenally, even before discovering the Self, they would say that there is no point in getting attached to that which is appearing. Isn’t it? Because they have seen that no matter what you do, there is no point in hanging on to these appearances. This is surrender, you see? Just to be open to what is appearing on the seeming-outside. Anything can be happening. Let’s look together.

Anything could be happening on the outside. All of you could go crazy this second, and come to attack me or something. Suppose… [Laughs] But will that change anything that is real here? Will the Witness of all of this outside movement change in any way, because of anything happening in this realm? It won’t change.

So if anything happening on the outside cannot change or touch this Witness, then who is so concerned about it? Who wants things to be a certain way? ‘I want my life…, (and by that we usually mean the appearances that appear in my life), …to only be a certain way’. Who is this one?

We surrender the outer appearances, and say that ‘Whatever be Thy will, in this realm’ and yet You remain untouched. It’s completely unpredictable what happens; and when we let go of it, when we let go of ideas of what should happen, then we start enjoying this play in this way. And I can tell you that it is a lot more fun to watch this movie without trailers or expectations of how it should be.

[Brief audio cut]… right now? There are millions, billions of processes maybe that are happening in the body right now. What are the processes that go into place to make us smile right now, or to make us cry right now? There are many, many thousands; so many millions of things which are happening in this body right now and we feel that it is ‘my body’. You can’t even change one heartbeat of the body, and we claim ownership of it.

So, anything can happen in this body, and we can let it go. Let it go does not mean necessarily some recklessness or neglect. There’s just a neutrality towards what is appearing. And in the same way that nothing happened to the Witness when something appears in the outside realm, then in the same way you also realize that nothing happened to That which Witnesses this body, no matter what is happening to the body. Even the pain in the body does not touch the Witnessing of it.

Then what else do we want to control? Thoughts. Many in India actually are trying to get a pure mind. ‘I want a pure mind’. And nobody…, (nobody I have seen, at least; I shouldn’t say ‘nobody’)…, has been able to do it. But nobody that I have seen has been able to do this. ‘Think only pure thoughts. Think no defense.’ The mind is attack and defense. Only us vs. them, only arrogance, only specialness. It is the job of the mind to inculcate these ideas. But is That who is aware of the mind, the Witness of the mind, is That affected in any way by the purity or the impurity of the mind?

Right now any thought can come. Does something happen to the Witness of it because the thought came? And is something taken away from the Witness when the thought goes? It’s just a coming and going; just like any other appearance.

Then what else do we get attached to? Some sensation or emotion. Step back from these and really look. What happens if the emotion is joy or the emotion is grief? Does something happen to the Witness of them?

The mind of course will come and say ‘But only these kind of emotions should come’. And yet, in this play full of contrast, we have both opposites whether we like it or now. But the important point to notice is ‘How does That which Witnesses these…, how is that one touched, how is that one affected?’

And it is possible right now to be completely open to allow everything to come in all these layers, seeming-layers of existence that we spoke about, because the Witness is not an entity. If the Witness was an entity then something coming or going could hurt it or affect it. Therefore we can say that there is no Witness actually; there is only the Witnessing.

And you must not try to understand this. You must try to check if this is true or not. You must not collect new concepts. See that this is true. It’s very simple.

A: Suppose that satsang was an e-commerce website. [Laughter]. If satsang was an e-commerce website, put the outside appearances into the cart, put the body into the cart, put the thoughts, emotions, into the cart, put even the sense that I exist, I Am, into the cart. Now what is left? Everything is gone, into the cart. What is left? Is that which is left…, can we find that one to put it into the cart?

Q: Something is coming in this absence, some joy is coming.

A: Yes. Joy is also into the cart.

Q: Oh no. [Laughter].

A: [Laughter]. Because whatever we can find, can go into the cart. Whatever has been located, into the cart. Can we locate our Self? All feelings, sensations, all these appearances, sublime experiences, everything that is located, put it into the cart. Have you gone in, or you’re still here?

Q: Some tension is dissolving, like I’m disappearing.

A: Yes, yes, yes. But once you disappear, that means you’re no longer an appearance. Are you still here, or no?

Q: Without boundaries.

A: Yes.

Q: It’s how I will…, and it makes me feel afraid.

A: Yes. Without boundaries.

Q: Just space.

A: Also without any attributes, qualities, anything. No color, no shape, no form; not within time, not within this space.

Q: Something wants this dissolution. The fear is about…

A: That ‘something’ also in the cart. Whatever you find, you put it in the cart. Because that which is claiming to want to find It, is actually trying to distract you, from It.

Q: Yes. It’s mind.

A: Whatever you can find, put it in the cart. Put it in the basket. What is left? Have you also gone in the basket? It’s a very simplistic example, but it’s very powerful I feel. Because you can take every phenomenal appearance, and keep it aside. Keep it aside. Keep it aside. What is left? You are still here…, as what?

Who thinks this is some la-la-land type example? And it’s not really helping. You can say; you can be honest and we can look together. [Laughter]

Okay, at what stage do you leave? At what stage, do you leave?

Have you left…, when the outer appearances would stop?

Do you say ‘Put it in the basket, put it in the cart’?

Or do you say ‘They’ve stopped’?

Have you left because outer appearances just stopped?

Are you still here or not?

Still here.

Now, you stopped experiencing the sensations from your own body. You cannot sense that your own body is here, you cannot see it. And now no sensations are also coming from your body. So your body seems to have gone.

Are you still here or no?

Now, all emotions, feelings, sensations, also you’re not feeling anything of these, they’re also gone. You’re still here or no? No thoughts arising also. All thoughts gone, kept aside, not appearing, thoughts also gone.

But you are still here or no?

[Silence].

In this place, there is no love, peace, joy; all are gone. But you are still here.

Now even this sense that I am, I exist, if it is gone, will That which witnesses even this, will that remain or no?

[Silence]

Now is This one not what you already are?

Do you have to become this one?

Is it effortful, to remain as this Awareness?

Have you ever been anything but this actually?

[Silence].

Can you ever become now, any of this appearance?

Can you try to become something which is just appearing?

And show me if you succeeded?

[Silence].

When all things have gone, is the awareness of them also gone?

Can there be anything without the awareness of it?

Can we truly report on the existence of that, which we are not aware of?

There must at least be an imagined idea of it, for us to be able to say that it exists. There must be at least a mental concept of it, to say that it exists without me being aware of it.

This Knowingness, this Awareness, this Seeingness… is unchanging, unborn, undying…, in front of which, made up of which, this entire phenomenal play happens. The birth of the universe, and the dissolution.

[Silence]

So if this entire universe was to be put in the basket or to be burnt, this Awareness would remain as the undying witness.

[Silence].

You are getting used to being boundary-less now, you see? Because Being is coming to the recognition of That from which it arises.

Because the Absolute is unchanging, does not have states, does not have delusion nor recognition. It is its dynamic play, the dynamic aspect called Consciousness, which is playing like this; playing as if it is forgetting what It Is, and playing as if it is remembering or recognizing what It Is. Play of Consciousness, God’s play.

Presence, absence, even ultimately Awareness, unawareness, Knowing, not-knowing, none of these, ultimately, are the truest definition of the Absolute; not even the Absolute or not-Absolute. Yet, when we have to use terms in this play. Therefore terms like Awareness, or Knowingness, or the pure Witnessing, pure Seeing, are beautiful pointers to That which You Are.

The way of the world is to go from that which is simple to that which is more complex, more difficult; a level 1, level 2, level 3. The way to build expertise in this world is to go from that simplicity to more and more insight through complexity. But the way of this satsang, the way of spirituality, true spirituality, is to go from that complexity into more and more simplicity. And if we find that something is grasping to understand, something is grasping to get some conceptual expertise, then we know that it can safely be dropped. Because nothing that I’m saying actually needs to be understood in that way. You see? So even when I say ‘Please understand’ what I really mean is ‘Please look’. Because nothing here is really abstract. To the mind it is completely unfathomable, and therefore it seems totally abstract. But to You, the reality that You are, nothing is extraordinary here that we are speaking about.

So it’s not that we must take on more and more conceptual understanding, but more and more get used to just checking for ourselves as to what is really here. And if we notice that there is something like grasping for more and more understanding, even that can be dropped. Because in that, there is a sense that ‘I will’ …, ‘Today I picked up these concepts, tomorrow I’ll pick up some more maybe and in a few weeks of satsang, I will really have got it’. If there’s a sense that ‘This satsang is good because every day I can pick up some new spiritual concepts, and in a few weeks I will have my bag full’ then it’s not really the same satsang as I’m in. It’s in some sort of a mental satsang where these words are just being picked up. ‘Oh, this one sounds good, so let me collect this one’. ‘This one…, okay, this one I knew before, so this one can go’. ‘This one I don’t really agree with, so this can be kept aside’.

So our disagreement actually must not come from a fight between concepts. You see? Our disagreement must not come from ‘This is what I believe’ verses ‘This is what you say’. Our disagreement, if any, must come from this sense that ‘I checked on what you say, and I find that it is not true’. This is beautiful contemplation, and always reveals something.

Very often, there can be some confusion about non-doership, personal non-doership verses ‘Then who is the pointing in satsang for?’ This confusion can remain actually for a long time for many of us. Because on the one hand, we say ‘There is nothing for you to do’. Who is that referring to? It is referring to that which does not exist. The person that does not exist obviously cannot do anything. When we say ‘Don’t try to do anything’ it means ‘Don’t believe in this sense of personal doership’. Then what is all of the pointing for? The idea still remains sticky sometimes; that this satsang, or satsangs in general, will help the person free itself from personhood.

The idea can remain sometimes that satsang is to help the person free itself from personhood. But this is not the case. Satsang, like everything else in this realm, is just a play that Consciousness is playing with Itself.

So, I’m going to repeat one more time because I know this is sort of a sticky confusion for many of you. So, let’s look at it really step by step.

Awareness, always aware, is not deluded, not confused, cannot play any roles, is not operating actively in this realm at all. It’s just the primal Witnessing of this entire play.

With me?

Awareness is always aware. It cannot be playing the game of delusion and freedom, it cannot be an active participant in this realm of appearances. So …, then what has to be done to Awareness? Is there some pointing for Awareness? No. Obviously not. Awareness is just aware. It is the unborn, undying, absolute, ultimate…, whatever you want to call it; That One. No satsang is needed for Awareness. Therefore when we point to Awareness, what is the purpose of it? When we point to Awareness, when we say ‘Are you aware now?’ it is for that which is playing as if it were a person in this realm, for it to play the game of recognition of what it truly Is.

[Someone asks a question and a long conversation begins]

Q: I just wanted to ask, why do you say ‘playing the game’? Playing that game to … ?

Okay, so stay with me, we’ll get to that point. So, it’s clear that Awareness could not be the one that is spoken to here? That is clear? Or not.

Q: Yeah, I guess…, I don’t know about that.

So this Awareness which we say is the unborn, undying, untouched, unconcerned, un-label-able One…, so if it is all of that, then obviously it is not being helped in satsang in any way.

Q: Yeah, I understand that.

So, Awareness is just aware of this entire…, I call it ‘play’. I’ll tell you why now.

Q: Just I can tell you kind of why I’m confused…, because if you call it the play, you say ‘Sometimes you play, or you’re done with the play and you try and come back’. But now you’re saying ‘The play to recognize’. So, I feel like the play is when you’re not trying to recognize; when you’re trying to play, you’re playing the life game. And then when you’re done with the play is when you want to recognize. Maybe it’s not …

Yes. No, no, it’s good. We’ll look at this in detail actually, because today I really want to get into this confusion about this.

So, let’s stay with what I am saying. So, Awareness is aware. Nothing is changing for Awareness. We say in every satsang that the person does not exist. The person does not exist, so we would not be spending all this time trying to guide this one that does not exist.

Q: Yes.

Yes. So Awareness just does not need any help with anything at all. The person does not exist. So then the question that is very valid is ‘What is satsang for?’ Then, what can be trouble is that when we say ‘All there Is, is Awareness’…, which is ultimately true, actually…, and ‘The person never existed’…, therefore nothing is needed, no conversation at all is needed, even this seeming-conversation is not needed. You see?

Q: From the Ultimate, yes.

But there is nothing else, for there to be something which is not the Ultimate. That means we must bring our attention to that which seems to be playing as if it is not the Ultimate. It is relative.

Q: Yeah, I mean, I guess people like me fall into perspectives that are less Ultimate; more relative. So …

Actually, if we’re talking about an appearance in this realm, then we cannot really refer to it as the Ultimate anyway. Because this realm is the realm of conditioning. You see? There is no expression, no true expression of that Ultimate, non-existent, non-phenomenal Absolute which can be found in this play of phenomena. This entire realm is a play of phenomena.

Q: Okay, I understand that.

So, to just presume that’ I am non-phenomenal’, which is the Absolute truth, can sometimes become the denial of this appearance of this relative realm.

Q: Yeah.

Yeah. I know it can seem a bit sticky. What I’m simply saying is that although the truth is always that ‘I am this non-phenomenal Awareness’…, yet to deny the appearance of the dynamic aspect, the phenomenal aspect which arises within me can become a very strongly egoistic, mental stand-point. You see, if you just say like a mantra that ‘All is This Awareness, All is This Absolute’…, how that can manifest [in us], (and how it manifested here when I was under that affliction, in a sense), was the manifestation of this ‘Spiritual Jerk’ which was when anyone would come in front of me and say ‘This is what’s happening to me’ or ‘This is what my day was like’…, like when my wife would come and say these things to me, I would say ‘But who are you? You don’t exist’. [Laughs] So as you can tell, that conversation would not go well. Because, as Adya said ‘Although everything you’re saying is true, you’re still being a jerk’. And this jerkiness comes from sticking on mentally to an Ultimate perspective, unwilling to acknowledge the existence or the appearance of this realm which is Consciousness. And yet, the denial of Consciousness can only happen within Consciousness.

Awareness cannot say ‘There is no Consciousness’. Awareness is not interested in saying that. So even the denial of Consciousness happens only in the realm of Consciousness.

So, there must be this appearance of this dynamic aspect, this ‘I Am’.., and within that, the ability to say ‘I am not’. Even to say that ‘I am not’ must first presume the existence of an ‘I Am’. You see?

I know it’s a bit tricky today, but we must look into these things. To say ‘I am not’ needs ‘I Am’.

Q: Or else how would you speak?

Exactly. Or how would you say ‘I am not’ before there being an ‘I Am’…, ‘which is not’. You see?

So this leads to a lot of ‘level confusion’ because…, in the sense that we’re trying to speak about that which is the Ultimate Reality from a place of denying the relative appearance of this phenomenal realm…, within the phenomenal realm. If all that we knew to be true is the Ultimate Reality then I don’t feel there would be any need to speak in the phenomenal realm.

Q: But you still speak.

Exactly. So that is now what we are coming to. So what is then the point of satsang? What is the point of this sharing?

So, for me, I would rather say that rather than denying the phenomenal play, let us look. And nobody can deny that this appearance is appearing. Really, with integrity, can we deny that this appearance is appearing? No. It can be said that ‘I am not in the appearance’ but we cannot say that this appearance is not appearing; because even to say that would be within the appearance itself.

Q: Yes.

So, now that this appearance seems to be appearing, how does the play of appearances go? It goes with the picking up of the conditioning that ‘I am a person, I am the body, these are my relationships, these are the things I want and these are the things I don’t want; this is my life’. All of this conditioned play. Playing as a person is the usual appearance in this realm. And how it also usually appears is that when one is tired of playing as a person…, (Okay, so this is…, I’m getting to your question finally)…, when one is tired of playing as a person then the next stage of this play of the Leela starts, which is the play of freedom.

Q: The play OF freedom…

The play of freedom. Why? Because nothing really happened to Consciousness. Consciousness, when it started playing as the person, did not actually become a person.

Q: Okay.

So, it played the play of a person. And then, as a final game of the play of the person, it is playing the game of dissolution of personhood itself. You see? So it is this dissolution of personhood that is the ending of the play of the person. And yet, that which IS, this ‘I Am-ness’ which is here cannot be denied. Because I cannot say ‘I have stopped being’ just because I have discovered I am not a person. Being is still here. The denial of Being can only be within Being.

Q: And then you continue to play as Consciousness….

As God. So you move from playing as if you’re a person to moving to play just as Consciousness, [Being] or God Itself.

Q: But when you say ‘You play’ do you feel like You’re playing? Is it…? I’m speculatively asking. I want to ask. So you say ‘You are playing as God’. Are You playing as God? Or God is playing and you’re just kind of there.

It depends on what you’re calling Yourself. So if you say that ‘I am Awareness’ then you can say that ‘I am the Witness of God’s play’.

Q: Yeah, but is there a sense that ‘I am playing’? Is that sense there that ‘I am playing’?

Yes, I Am. The ‘I Am’ sense still remains.

Q: So, you have the feeling that you’re playing?

Yes, the sense that ‘I Am’ itself is the play.  The sense that ‘I Am’ itself is the play. You see? So, the’ I Am’ stays and this world of appearances is dancing for that ‘I Am’. That itself is the play now. But you’re no longer playing as the person.

But if you’re saying ‘I’m playing’ as if I’m playing a video game or something, no; not like that.

Q: I don’t get it. I don’t. But it’s fine.

Okay, so let’s replace the word ‘playing’. So, let’s say that God was pretending as if it was a person; pretending in that way. And now the pretense is dropped. But it doesn’t mean that this world of appearances stops appearing and moving about.

So, forget ‘play’. You see this aspect of pretending…

Q: I can’t understand your words, actually. I kind of stopped being able to understand the words, kind of a while ago. Like, in every satsang, I don’t understand anything. [Ananta chuckles & smiles] And I don’t even know why I’m asking the questions because I also know I won’t understand. But I just really like satsang. I know what I feel when I come. You know? So that’s enough. And I know what’s happening inside. But somehow I want to know this. I don’t know why I want to know this right now.

It’s good. It’s very good. Okay. So, tell me…, I know this feeling. I know this feeling from direct experience. So, when I say ‘Can I stop being now?’ is there something to understand in that?

Q: So, you ask me the question and the question goes inside and something happens. It’s almost like somebody puts another camphor into the fire, and I feel it. It’s like something burns again. Some nonsense lights up. And it feels real, or whatever. And that’s all I can say.

So, the answer is what? Can you stop being?

Q: I don’t know.

You must try to stop being. Try to stop being. Don’t be here. Don’t be.

Q: [Throws his head back]

Can you not be? For a just a second?

Q: I don’t know. I don’t want to say anything.

Just say, from direct experience. Don’t worry about sounding silly or right or something.

Q: [Puts his hands over his eyes]

I’m asking something very simple. Can you stop Being?

Q: I don’t want to give you just an answer.

Just see from your own experience. Can I stop being now?

Q: I can’t. I can’t. But I find it hard to say this because there is nothing substantiating my response. Like I usually try to speak when I have something to substantiate it, something to prove that what I’m saying is true. But I’m just saying it…, it feels like I’m just talking…

Here, we don’t need any secondary evidence. Just the direct evidence…, that I tried to stop being, and yet Being is still here.

Q: Yeah. It’s here.

It’s here.

Q: I don’t know if I can stop it, or I can’t stop it. I took the question and I…

Yes. The point is not to stop it or not stop it, the point is to bring you to the experience that the Being is here.

Q: Yeah, it’s here.

It’s here. Okay. So, that’s all that needed to be understood with that.

Q: Okay.

So you are coming to the direct experiencing. The mind could still be saying ‘But I didn’t understand what happened’.

Q: [Starts laughing]

So, that’s exactly what I was saying, that our idea of understanding has been this conceptual understanding; and we are keeping that aside and coming to the direct looking.

So, you say ‘Being is here’. No mental concept can bring you to this point where authoritatively you can say ‘Being is here’. It can only be from your direct experience.

Q: Can you tell me if I am experiencing it or not?

You are experiencing it. Everybody is.

Q: So, when I say ‘yes’…, am I lying or am I telling the truth?

[Laughs and laughter in the room] If you were lying, then you would be able to stop being.

Q: But am I just speaking like a conceptual spiritual ego? Or whatever; am I fake or am I real? Like I don’t want to keep coming to satsang and just be a lemon. I really want to get there and speak honestly.

Just like a child [being asked]…, Can you stop being now?

Q: [Shakes his head ‘no’]

Why? Because…?

Q: Because I can FEEL my Being is being. And my heart is beating and I feel the heart beating, so I feel like this is me, being. Is that right?

You can feel that Being is being. Does it need the heart to beat…, to be?

Q: When you ask me this question, it feels like my heart goes ‘whoop’.

And yet, if that was to stop, would that be the end of Being? Suppose even this didn’t come to your attention.

Q: [Throws his head back] It would be the end…, is what I feel like…., if my heart stops beating, I wouldn’t exist.

Right now, can you stop being, irrespective of what the heart is doing?

Q: How can I separate my heart from my being?

It’s like saying ‘If my brain stopped functioning, then I would stop being’. So, is it the heart or the brain?

Q: Feels like it’s the heart. It sounds so dumb; I know it sounds…, but it’s really what I’m feeling.

It’s okay. We are looking at conditioning and ideas that we have about ourselves, and we are letting them go. So it’s okay to look at this, to be honest like this.

Q: Because the experience of the heart beating is validating my existence. And I can try to go all spiritual, that I’m believing it and …, no. But it really feels like this is… [Silence] And there’s a lot of emotion. There’s a lot of emotion around that heart-center area which I feel in the body. I feel that this is where I am.

Yes. And the rest of it is where? [Silence] The rest of your body is not inside you? [Silence] If you say ‘This is what I am’ then the rest of it is not you?

Q: It’s not.

Then who is it? What is it?

Q: It’s something else. I’m not concerned about it.

So, you are just here.

Q: I just feel like yeah, I’m in my heart. It’s emotional and it’s also accompanied with actual physical heart moving.

Yes. So if you were just here, then who would be worried about sounding silly or whether they got it or any of that? You’re just the heart. So, don’t fight that. Just the heart. Now, what else is there? Who else is Satyn? [Silence] Who doesn’t want to speak from spiritual concepts? Who is it that stops understanding midway in satsang? The heart?

Q: [Stunned silence; looking, listening]

And who perceives the heart also? Is that which sees the heart or is aware of the heart, is that also the heart?

Q: No.

So, is that somebody else who is seeing? Or are you seeing the heart? Even the beating of the physical heart…, who is perceiving?

Q: I can’t catch that question. Like, it’s not…

This one that can’t catch this question. Let’s keep that one on the side for a while, because it’s simpler than that.

You’re saying that the heart is beating, yes or no.

Q: Yes.

That who is seeing that the heart is beating; who is that one? Is Prabha [sitting there] telling you that your heart is beating?

Q: No, she’s not.

Is it not your direct experience?

Q: It is my direct experience.

So, therefore you must be seeing that the heart is beating. You are aware of the beating of your heart, isn’t it?

Q: Yes, I am.

So, this one that his aware of the beating of the heart, is that also beating? Is it the heart? What is it?

Q: Yeah, it’s … silent. [Laughs]

Silent. Yes.

Q: It comes and goes, though.

It comes and goes? And who is there to see that it comes and goes? You say it comes and goes…

Q: I say this out of frustration, because I’m always coming back to this place…

It’s okay.

Q: … that I’m losing it then coming back then losing it.

So, let’s say it like this, okay? So, let’s say I’m attached to something. And this something is like a flower in my garden or my rose plant, it has some roses and I’m very happy when it comes; but it goes. It comes and it goes. You see? So, I am watching my rose plant. The rose is coming and the rose is going. And I don’t like, because it comes and goes. You see? But I must be there to report that something is coming and going. I must know that the rose plant has a rose or doesn’t have a rose.

Q: Of course, of course.

In the same way, I could say that I have this beautiful thought about the future, this beautiful image, imagination of what my house will be 10 years later. And I love it. But even this thought comes and goes. Therefore, there must be an ‘I’ that knows that this thought comes and goes. Isn’t it?

Q: [Shakes his head yes]

In the same way, you could say that I have this beautiful feeling of bliss. But even this feeling comes and goes. Everything in this appearance comes and goes.

Q: I mean, it’s always there in satsang, and then I leave satsang and it’s there; but eventually it goes.

It goes. Everything in this appearance comes and goes. But for You to be able to say ‘It comes and goes’…, it means You must still be there to watch the coming and going of it.

Can you really say…? If you were a just that feeling, or that which actually came and went, then You would also go along with it. No?

Q: But that’s impossible.

Is it just mentally impossible, or… ?

Q: Yeah, it’s mentally impossible.

Let’s check. Any feeling, the coming and going of it, am I not there to witness it?

Q: [Silence]

You say ‘In satsang I get these beautiful feelings of bliss, then it reduces and it eventually goes.

Q: How am I getting those experiences? I am…

Yes. And yet, that which is the Witness of these is untouched by them. That which says ‘They are coming, very beautiful, very strong’ and then ‘They are going’. Is that one touched by it?

Q: I get it, I get it and then I doubt it. I doubt everything. Like I am a doubting person. I have that tendency. I doubt everything, anything.

It’s very helpful…

Q: Yes, but it’s bad also.

Well sometimes, but when you are in Satsang, it can be helpful actually.

Q: No. Because I don’t believe anything.

Don’t believe anything.

Q: No, but it’s bad.

[Laughs] Don’t believe that also.

Q: Because when I get a good experience, I am like ‘Wait…, am I really getting a good experience? Is it really happening for me?’ … blah, blah, blah, blah.

Very good. Use this.

Q: I feel mad. I feel like a mad man.

Don’t believe this. Don’t believe this also. Don’t believe it is bad, you are mad, all these “ads”, don’t add to yourself. So don’t believe anything, including what I am saying.

Q: Okay, yes. Okay, no wait. No, I have to believe what you say. It’s like because if I believe what you say, it overrides my own belief, honestly. Because I am able to put more trust in your words than my words. So it actually helps a lot. I would say ‘I believe Ananta’ and then I am able to get out of my own head and then listen to you and it takes me out.

But, so if we are replacing prior conditioning with new conditioning, that is all right. But ultimately even this conditioning must be let go of, because I don’t want you to be dependent on my belief system.

Q: But I am.

Right now. So let’s look at how we can even transcend that.

Q: I don’t want to transcend. I just want to be around you. Because you are It. I can just keep listening to you. You will take me wherever I have to go. I don’t have to do anything.

This is also OK. This is surrender which is very beautiful. But just don’t block off anything. Then if you trust me, then just remain open to what is being shared…, ‘Okay, so I don’t really care what he is saying, I just want to be with him’.

Q: I think I do that.

Yeah, that’s what I am saying. This is a normal thing that happened with those with a devotional temperament. Sometimes they can fall into this trap which is that ‘He’s just talking some nonsense. [Laughs]. You see? Whatever, whatever, whatever sense you have…, a little bit of just remaining open. Don’t say it’s just nonsense. Just remain open. Say ‘I don’t get it yet but I trust he will get me there’. You will find that those who have come to Satsang with even this devotion…, like Aradhana when she came first, she had no interest in any of what was being pointed like this. She was just like this, like ‘I just want to be with you and I know that I am safe with you. I can trust you’. And yet there was some openness in allowing things to come, and looking would happen very naturally. And now if you speak to her, she speaks about all of this; Awareness, Consciousness. There’s nothing which escapes.

Q: I think it is only because of that actually because I don’t get all this stuff really. I can pretend like I get it and say the stuff. But I feel like it’s only because I put my whole Being, like, in what you say. I am like ‘I am just going to totally listen to you’ and then it automatically happens. It’s totally you. Like that’s the only thing that works.

It’s okay like this. Actually, if someone was to ask me also…, (and although I can sound like this, and sound very Advaita and things like this), but if someone was to say ‘You have to pick between being a devotee or being a Gyani’ then I would say devotee’. So then being a devotee is not a struggle.

Q: Yeah, it’s not. I think… [Laughs].

Because it’s easy then. Everything is my Master’s problem, my Father’s problem. Then with that, all this conditioning from the mind and ‘What’s going to happen to you? Where is my life going?’…, all of that seems powerless because ‘None of it is my problem’. It is my [Ananta’s] problem. None of it is your problem.

Q: But I am a bad student. I pick it up again.

Don’t pick this up.

Q: You get rid of it, I get it back.

And suppose you were a bad student, whose problem would that be? You say ‘I have surrendered to you’. Then don’t pick up trying to fix the bad student also.

Q: But I get frustrated. I am like ‘Why? Because when you went to Satsang and Anantaji did this and that, it’s like, look: Free! And then you picked it up again’.

This is also my problem then. You can’t have it both ways. You see? This is okay. Let me unravel this for you.

Q: It’s like you come half-way and I come half-way. I believe that.

No, that is not the way of surrender. You can say something like that but the point is that if you have surrendered, then surrender everything. You see? There are many variations of half-surrender and this is one of them.

The first variation of half-surrender is that ‘You are the doer now but I am the experiencer’…., ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ or ‘Thank you for doing this to me’. But actually doer and experiencer must be the same.

Sometimes those who are inclined to pride, they will say all the good things…, ‘I was very good today, I did all the good stuff’. You see? And yet ‘God is doing this to me or my Master is doing these bad things to me’. You see? Those who are inclined towards pride will say that.

Those who are inclined towards guilt, they will say ‘Master is for such great stuff. Ananta is doing this, he’s doing this…, and yet I am being so bad’. Then if your Master can do the good stuff then who is doing the bad stuff? If the Master is the doer, then everything must be his doing.

Q: I understand it. Yes. I understand.

Then with this surrender, then you see that the sense of personal doership dissolves. Then you see that ‘Everything is my Masters’ and then you will say ‘My master and I are one’.

Q: Yeah, I want that.

Let that be my problem to deal with. You don’t pick up anything about yourself. Let it all be, take it up with my Father. Whatever the mind is saying, take it up with my Father. Like ‘You are being bad, you are not listening’. Take it up with my Father.

Q: I can say that?

Yes, you can say that.

Q: Okay.

Even, the most…, sometimes the fear is that ‘How can I give this to my Father? This is too horrible or terrible’.

Q: Yes, I feel that.

You can.

Q: How can I just say ‘It’s you’? How can I put the ‘own-ness’ or the responsibility to blame on you?

Yes, you can.

Q: [Talking to himself] ‘Can’t just make excuses for your life, Satyn’.

You can’t have it both ways. You see. Then don’t give me the good stuff also. Don’t give me credit for the good stuff. Then say ‘Satyn did it’.

Q: But then how does that help me?

Exactly. So leave both of this to me. If there is a sense that ‘My Master is doing it’ then your Master is doing everything. To experience this realm of contrast, sometimes he is eating sugar, sometimes he is eating salt. Then you will come to the realization that there is no Satyn and there is no Master; that we are one. You give up on ideas of Satyn, the most guilt ridden ones, the most shameful ones as well as the most full of pride, the most amazing ones. All ideas of Satyn must be dropped.

Q: Can you take them for me?

That’s what we are doing in Satsang.

Q: I don’t want them.

Then you don’t energize them with your belief.

Q: Yeah.

And especially your most guilty thoughts, say ‘Take it up with my Father’. Because I see you are attracted to guilt. Why do you want to be that way? It is all my problem.

Q: Years of conditioning, right. And I don’t make excuses but…

Years of conditioning are nothing for the Satguru. If you keep believing that it’s years and it should take years to go, then it will play that way. To That which is The Eternal One, years of conditioning is nothing but a blink of an eyelid. It is the devotees that have the easiest time actually. So now you see it. Don’t become guilty about that. You see, because those who are attracted to guilt will even say ‘If I say don’t become guilty…?’ then you say ‘Okay I am becoming too guilty’ and feel guilty about that.

Q: Like I wanted that. I can’t even blame anyone else. I can’t make an excuse because I chose that thought pattern. Since I have come to Satsang, I can even see ‘Ahh, at that point I even chose that and I continue to run that way’. So, yeah, I feel like I am running back the other way. I have to run as long.

Now you don’t have to do anything. I am running for you. And this can be a little fearful. This mind comes and says ‘But who are you?’ …, ‘What are you to do?’ Nothing.

[Silence]

Q: Thank you. I love you. A lot..

Yes…, Same, same.

Q: Really. No, I really, really, really love you a lot. I would be totally just lost without you, [and] Sri Mooji.

I am always here. Even physically I am mostly here. [Laughs].

Q: Yeah, thank God for that. Thank God I was born in Bangalore. Wondering if I did something right to be born in Bangalore.

We had to dance this dance together. We had to be here.

Q: Yeah, thank God for that. Thank God for you. Okay, I love you. I guess I should go. So thanks and I love you.

The seeker guy, the seeker identity, is the most serious, painful friend to have. It’s like…, [hand on head, wondering gesture] And then when it says ‘Oh, I’m on the spiritual path. I must always be happy’.  But inwardly it’s still…, [hand on head, wondering gesture] but outwardly it’s saying that.

And what is the main story behind this seeker guy? That ‘I know something’. Or ‘I still don’t know something. There’s some ultimate secret that I will discover some day’. Very popular in India especially. Because it’s so popular to hear these stories, like the Master telling ‘We just sing bhajans together for 10 years, we just do a lot of service, we feed people’…, like that. And then he takes you into one cave, and inside that cave there’s a secret vault or something, and out comes this book which has the secret of the Universe. So after 10 years like that, then the secret of the Universe is revealed. And it’s very popular, for us in India especially, to have these kind of concepts. ‘There’s something they’re not telling me yet’.

But when you come to satsang like this where we start by saying ‘You are free. You are God. You are That Awareness from which even Consciousness is born’…, there are no secrets here. And yet, you want to mentally own this idea, you want to mentally own the idea of freedom or mentally own the idea of God. Instead of checking for what is true, we want to know it just conceptually.

And after knowing it conceptually, we want to feel that way, as a sort of confirmation. We must look at this together, because this happens a lot of times. Because we feel like ‘I know something. I found my freedom. I discovered I’m God’…, and then ‘I want to feel like that; I want to feel that way and I still don’t feel that way! That means I haven’t really got it’.

Neither of those two things are needed; to either think that way or feel that way is not what we are talking about. God does not feel a certain way. Are feelings are His/Hers.

So is it only that joy, bliss, happiness…, these belong to God and anger, lust, frustration, irritation, guilt, pride, all these belong to someone else? Who else could it be? In the same breath we say ‘But it’s only God. God is everything’. That’s why I’ve been saying over and over that it’s not about what we think or what we feel. It is about what we are recognizing ourself to be right now. If there is openness to check this, (it could be your first satsang), you can come to this recognition.

And usually I find it is not recognition of this which is so much trouble. It is the after-effects, side-effect of this recognition, which then the ego uses to try to sustain itself.

So the recognition is simply here: I am Here. I am Aware that I Am. If we don’t let our mind into this, it’s so clear what we’re saying: I am Aware that I Am.

But what is the side-effect of this? The mind comes in and says ‘Well,… so what?’ What happened to you? What changed? Nothing.

I have been saying that ‘You have always been This’. And yet we buy this idea from the mind that ‘What happened? What changed?’ Nothing. You have always been This.

Or the mind comes and says ‘Okay, you got it now, it’s so clear’…., so that later it can say ‘No, no, you’re losing it now. You got angry or you don’t feel so clear now, so you must be losing it’. It’s still telling you a story.

So, it’s these stories that we buy. Many times I’ve felt we’ve had this experience, this recognition which is always right now, and the mind offers up a visual of this experience and says ‘This is it’. And we burn that into our memory, and we rely on that from memory to say ‘Yes. This is what I am’. We get stuck into these kind of mental states, mental states or ideas about what Awareness or Beingness are.

So, to avoid any of this, we must be fresh. No sage has ever said that he’s beyond conditioning. No master has ever said that ‘I know in the future I will never buy an idea’. At best, they’ve only said that…, okay, in this case, I’ve only said that since I met my master, I’ve said that I’ve lost the ability to suffer.  Moments; for some time. But when I look back at the last 7 years I can say that a thought has not got me for more than a few moments. But I cannot say that tomorrow no thought will get me. We don’t know these things. We must always be open and fresh to these things.

You see where I’m going? Just this. Anything which tells you that you are like this, this is happening to you, that you must not be this way, this feeling must not come; or that you will always now be free, no grief can ever come to you, you will always only have joy and bliss…, all of these are just traps. Any idea we have about ourself, especially these spiritual ones, are ultimately also just ideas from the mind. The reality that IS is not reliant on any of this. And in this openness, in this freshness and in this integrity there can be no resistance. Or even if resistance comes, it cannot really last. And we see that there is nothing missing in the Right Now. And when we compare the words in satsang with what our direct experience is right now…, this is very, very important. We must compare the words in satsang with the direct experience of What Is Right Now; and not with a story of what I feel it should be or I think it should be. Then you’ll come to see that what I am speaking is completely true for you.

And we should know that any story we pick up about ourself if only a doorway to suffering. But the good news is that you cannot really suffer without buying a story. You can experience pain without a story but there is no suffer-er in this pain. The suffer-er is just a figment of our imagination, of our thoughts. There is no suffer-er. There is no doer. There is no thinker. Except as an idea. You see?

And many times we just presume that the words of satsang are meant for this ‘entity’ but actually, they are not. There is no entity. The same mind which is telling you the stories of suffering is telling you the stories of freedom from suffering. You see? The same one that says that ‘My life is terrible because of this, this and this’ is also saying that ‘Your life can be better if you listen to satsang and think like this’. But if you really listen to satsang and you really look at where I’m pointing to, you will find that I am not pointing to an individual entity at all.

I’m speaking to You-as-Consciousness which is currently playing the role of a person. And all that I’m really saying is that: Why? Haven’t you had enough?

Every question about this, for almost the last three years every day in satsang, we have answered, I feel. ‘How do I drop the person? How do I not believe my thoughts? What are the powers of attention and belief? What is the root of identity? What is doership? What is Truth? What is devotion? What is surrender?’ And Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] answered these questions in the 1930’s, same questions. When you read ‘Talks with Ramana’ …, Parvati also sometimes reads, and I enjoy listening to it very much. And I have to be honest; not so much for the answer actually. Because I enjoy hearing the questions, and I enjoy hearing that the questions were just the same. Almost 100 years ago; still talking about the same thing.

So there is something which is so deeply invested in making the idea of ‘the person’ work that we are not willing to open up to the simplicity of what is being shared. And that ultimately is also a play of the same Consciousness. So you must not take on any sense of personal guilt about it that ‘Oh, I’m not doing a good enough job of dropping the person’. This is also very popular in seeker identity. ‘I’m unworthy’ or ‘I’m not doing a good enough job in dropping my person’. Who is this one? …. Just the same ‘person’ voice. You see? And actually, if the ego is keeping score of identification, then every time we buy these nonsense thoughts about unworthiness, not getting it, not dropping the person enough, not surrendered enough, not understanding enough…, it’s notching up 10 more points in the score board for the ego.

And right now, the mind might be shouting and saying ‘But then, what do I do?! He’s not telling me what to do’.

Just Look: Who is this voice? And who is it talking to?

And how to look? It’s not some mystical, esoteric process. It’s very, very simple. It’s definitely not mystical. How to look? How do I inquire? Just by looking, simply: Who am I? Am I that which is appearing? Or am I That to which that which is appearing is appearing to?

Am I that which is appearing?

Or am I That to which …that which is appearing… is appearing to?

And because it’s a long sentence, let me see if I can say it one more time. Am I that which is appearing? Or am I That to which that which is appearing is appearing to?

And just after I said it’s very simple. [Laughs]. Okay.

Am I that which is seen? Or am I the Seeing of it?

How is that? [Laughs].

Am I that which is seen?

Or That which is the Seeing of it?

Which one am I? Which one am I? Which one are you?

Are you that which is seen?

Then who’s Seeing it?

Are you not Seeing it?

And don’t go too far yet. I know the mind wants to jump and go ‘I’m both’. I know, I know. [Chuckles] Just hold on. So stay with this.

Can I be that which is seen?

Then who is it being Seen by?

What is more intimate to me:

The Seeing? Or that which is seen?

And even if the mind is saying ‘Yes, yes, I know this’…, check again. It doesn’t hurt.

So what is everything that is Seen? What is Seen? Outer world is seen. Am I that, the outer world? Or is the Seeing of it more intimate to me? Am I that which is also appearing in the outer world; this body? And the mind actually fantastically makes a distinction and says ‘No, no, outer world is not you. But the body is not outer world’. Isn’t it? It is part of the same world. The same realm which is appearing, this body is a part of that. Who Sees this one?

Then what else is Seen? Thoughts. Am I Seeing them? Or they are seeing me? Thoughts are coming and going; am I going along with them? Or I’m still here? Therefore I cannot be these. Also Seen. Same for memory, imagination.

What else is Seen? Emotional. We say ‘This morning I was feeling very frustrated’. Therefore what we’re saying is ‘Before this morning, this frustration was not there. I was there. I was still there. This feeling or not…, I was there’. And this feeling is perceived, it’s Seen.

And we also say ‘I woke up at 6:30 this morning; I went to sleep at 11:00 pm’. So something is already very clear about this truth; that this Presence also dissolves when sleep comes, and this Presence comes back up’. Don’t give it to the mind. You sleep and you wake up. A child knows this. That which sleeps and that which wakes up is your own Presence, Consciousness.  And yet, You are still there to say ‘I went to sleep’. But you say ‘I don’t know, I didn’t have any experience of sleep’. Because there was nothing there. How can you say ‘I experience sleep’? There was nothing there. You are saying ‘There was nothing there’…, no? ‘Nothingness’. You see? So it is not second-hand experience. Nobody told you that when you went to sleep there was nothing. You say this yourself. Then you say ‘I woke up’…, which means the ‘I Am’ woke up.

So, this One that Saw all of this seeming-outer and seeming-inner, don’t you know it is You? You know it is You actually. [Chuckles] Who else could it be, if not You? You already know it is You.

Now, what is the only trouble left? ‘Oh, but my mind is saying…..’ [Silence] Is there another You here, which the mind is representing? Is there another one of you which the mind is representing? Another one which is not getting enough attention and therefore needs this voice to come and give its opinions about things? Who is this one? Do you have a side-kick that you never knew about, which the mind comes and complains about? [Smiles] Who is it representing? And if it is representing You, then you must already know what it is saying. If it is Your voice, then why do You need to say it? You must already know it. If you have a pain in the stomach, the pain is already experienced. You know of the pain. Why do you need a voice to say ‘I have a pain in the stomach’? It is already know. If you’re feeling hot or cold, it is already experienced. But you will find that this mind is most often not talking about experience but some ideas; future. As simple as that.

And this mind tells you that right now you are not God, you are something else; you are some person…, which none of us can ever find. So actually, it is not that I can ever be person…, which is just the most crazy idea ever. Because nobody has ever found this one. You know? Almost 7 billion seemingly-appear on this planet. If you were to all of them and ask, nobody can show this person. And yet everybody is pretending to be one. This is Maya, you see. We must have gone to some very good acting schools, that we took on the roles so well. [chuckles]

Now, drop the act. Drop the act.

[Silence]

Actually maybe we can look at this question together also. Because I feel there’s something very simple; a very simple way to explore this idea that ‘I am the body’.  So don’t try to deny the idea firstly. Don’t try to say ‘I’m not the body’. Say ‘Okay it feels like I’m the body, so okay…, I’m the body’. Now what do you want? If you’re just the body, what do you want?

Q: Just to be very honest, it’s just the same question. Something doesn’t want to accept that right now, that ‘I am the body’.

Yes, but let see.

Q: Ok.

If you were just the body, then what would you want?

Q: I’m content right now; I’m full, there’s no pain, there’s no…,

Yes, yes, yes that’s why I say that actually from my experience the root of all trouble is not the identification with the body, although many Sages have said that. So I feel a little trepidation when I say these things but I have to always speak from my experience you see. So I find that if there was just identification with this body then all this trouble… There are four ways, four main ways in which we trouble ourselves. The first way is that we want special relationships, partner, romantically or other special relationships, family, you see. But is the body concerned about any special relationship?

Q: No but sometimes.., I don’t know if this counts?

Say.

Q: But like it feels like the body…, it could be a thought I don’t know but say if there’s a pretty girl or something, it feels that there’s something that happens here, you know what I mean?

Yes, this is very good, this is very good.

Q: Is that the body’s…, or is that combined with a thought?

This is very good, so you can sense that there’s an instant reaction that can come in the body, but the body is not saying that ‘This one should be my partner and my partner should behave in a certain way with me, she should respect me, we should always have a caring relationship, we should not cheat on each other’…, all this comes from where? Not the body, isn’t it? And so this instant feeling that comes of lust; it’s just like hunger, it’s very innocent, you see, so this is not causing trouble. So in the sense of ‘Oh my parents should understand me, my children should be a certain way’…, all of this special relationship stuff, the body is not concerned about. You see?

Q: Yes, I can see that, yes.

So this is the first way we trouble ourselves. The second way in which we trouble ourself is ‘I hope I have some security in my life. How much money is there in my bank account? How is my job? How is my manager treating me at work?’ You see? ‘Am I making career progress?’ You see? All of these things, security, money, materialist possession; is the body concerned about any of that?

Q: No.

No. You see, the body is not concerned. The third way in which we trouble ourself is ‘I want a healthy body. Healthier body’. You see? ‘Is my body fit enough? Am I exercising enough? Am I keeping the body fit enough? Is the body saying ‘I want a healthy body’?

Q: It’s hard for me to say because I..,

We can look at this together. It is like me saying I want to keep my car in good running condition so it doesn’t break down, you see? So if you explore this relationship between the ‘I’ that wants to keep even the body healthy, it is not the body which is saying ‘I want a healthy body’. It is the one that seems to be the so called owner of this body, the possessor of the body that is saying ‘My body’s not fit right now and I want to keep it healthy’.

Q: If I could give one example. When I used to drink a lot and then I had a hangover it’s almost like the body’s saying…,

Yes. But again that is an instant reaction. So you put instead of petrol, you put diesel in the car, that reaction will come in the car. But what I’m saying is ‘I must do this kind of exercise and we must keep the body in a certain condition’. I’m not saying any of that is bad but it is not coming from the body; it is coming from the identity which feels it is the owner of the body. You see? This is the third way in which we cause suffering to ourselves; imagined suffering. The forth is that ‘I want freedom’. Freedom itself is a cause of big suffering, especially in satsang; for those that come to satsang. The one that wants freedom, is that the body?

Q: No, it doesn’t.

Right now it’s free completely.

Q: No, it doesn’t know anything.

Those four things that seem to occupy us are not about the body. Then who are they about? You say ‘They are about me, it’s my life, my relationships, my money, my body, my freedom’. It got nothing to do with the body actually.

Q: No.

And yet we say that the trouble is with the identity with the body. No the trouble is the identity, the identifying with this idea of being a person. This is the ego. The sense that ‘I am a person’ is the ego. The trouble is egoic identity, not the sense that I am the body. And when we look simply like this we can see that ‘I am not the body’ because the body doesn’t care about any of these things.

Okay, so this is the way to just look at it very directly and logically. The second way is to see [as another questioner asked previously] ‘How is the body experienced here? The sensations of the body, are they all not happening within Being, within Me, My Being?’

Q: Yes, they’re all like coming back here somewhere…

The boundary of the body; when we look at this Being itself, does this have any boundary at all? Do the boundaries of the body restrict the space of my Being? Or is it that with every single experience, every sound, every voice, every sensation, there is only the experience of it within my own Being? Even my body is experienced within my Being.

Q: When you put it that way, it feels like everything, seeing that picture, is the same sensation, the same flavor as touching my leg or something and seeing…, it’s like…,

Yes, everything is here.

Q: It’s all…, well I don’t.., yes…, wait a second. [Laughing] Okay, I really enjoy this.

Yes, same here.

Q: And if we could just go slow. I don’t know where to go from here but…

Let’s look at this again. Every single experience, whether it is visual, sensual, whether it is experienced internally as a sensation or emotion; it is happening where? Inside You. Inside the space of your Being. And ultimately the flavor is that of One Consciousness. Although in the tasting of different experiences they might have qualitative differences, but there is nothing outside of this.

Q: How would I know?

You are checking, we are checking. Is there anything I could say that is experienced outside of Me? That is happening outside of Me? Including the body, is it not inside of this Being? …, all the sensations of the body, all the visualizations about the body?

Q: It’s all here…, coming here.

It’s all here, yes.

Q: And just speaking, there’s no sense of something outside of Me. I tried to really see if there’s something outside, but it feels like if it was it would still be reporting to me.

Yes, it’s here.

Q: Like anything. So I can say that I don’t know anything outside of me.

So, this means that in the so-called waking state we are realizing that just like in the dream where everything was inside of Me, all of this even right now is exactly the same. We are directly experiencing this, even the space (the seeming space) between two bodies are appearing within this Being, you see? So this is your taste of Oneness, phenomenal oneness. You find that everything that is appearing here is appearing within your own Being, is experienced only within my Being.

Q: Just looking, it is like this.

Yes, it is.

Q: Because I just saw.

Yes, it is your direct seeing, not a mental inference.

Q: And now there’s…, I don’t know, it feels like a tsunami of things, but even that…,

Yes but even that is appearing. How big is that inside of You? The mind; if it comes like a tsunami, and you see it appearing within the space of same Being, is it really too big for your Being?

Q: No, it’s not anything, it’s just like anything else.

Yes, yes, just another appearance. Is Being shaken up by it? See again, don’t infer anything.

Q: Well, can it?

Is the Being, shaken up by this tsunami? If the mind is coming like a tsunami, does the Being get shaken up by it? The space of where all experience is happening…, does anything happen to this one?

Q: No, it’s just like another…, and honestly I don’t even know where it’s going or what it’s reporting to. So…, but no. It…, sometimes it does somehow, but I’m questioning it.

It does seem to. Yes.

Q: I don’t know what we just did but…, it just…, It is seeing though, it’s not…, It’s just like anything else, any other…,

And this itself is very beautiful because you are realizing that this sense of Being, this sense of ‘I Am-ness’ is what ‘I Am’. ‘I Am That I Am’. And yet we might be able to even walk the next step together; which is very simple actually, to just check, whether ‘I’ am aware of even this space of Being. [Silence]

Q: Because I say it; that its’ reporting to nothing, I’m seeing it.

Yes.

Q: I’m saying it, and there’s this power just to See.

Yes.

Q: But…

So are You seeing it? Or is it seeing you?

Okay, let me rephrase the question. You found that there is this boundary-less space within which all experience is happening. You are aware of this space? Or is this space aware of you?

Q: I’m aware of it.

You are aware of it.

Q: Yes.

Now That which is aware of it, is that also contained in it?

Q: No… um..?

This is very good, look at this question: ‘That which is aware of it, is that also contained in it?’

We already said ‘Everything else I find to be contained within this space’. Now we are looking at the final question: ‘That which is aware of it, is that also contained within this space?’

Q: It’s Seen

It’s Seen.

Q: But I don’t know…,

And yet you cannot find a location of That which is aware of it.

Q: Wait, wait, wait, what?… Sorry.

Yes. Can you find the location of That One that is aware of this space? Is it located within this space?

Q: Let’s see. So currently just a bunch of images are coming up

Yes, yes.

Q: And I’ve heard many times in satsang. So just…, but yes just images are coming up.

Images are coming up within the same space of experiencing. Images are coming within the same space of experiencing; nothing is coming up outside of this. And I asked you…,

Q: Can we just back up a little bit?

Yes, yes yes.

Q: This is so good, okay. Okay, alright, I don’t know where to back up to but I lost you in the last couple of sentences and I just want to make sure…,

It’s good, yes. So let’s even start from the beginning. All that is experienced, including this body, including outward seeming…,

Q: Wait, Ananta. Sorry. So when you say ‘This body’, you’re saying the sensations that are reporting here?

Yes, because that is the only way this body is experienced. Yes?

Q: Okay.

It’s good, it’s very good. I like it very much when you clarify like this. The body is only experienced as a set of sensations, and when our eyes are open then it’s collaborated with this visual sense that there’s a body here, you see?

Now both of these are appearing within the space of My Being, they’re appearing with Me. We can say like that when we start. The sensations are experienced within Me, the visuals are experienced within Me; but in that space of experiencing, everything outside the body is also experienced.

Q: Yes.

There is nothing experienced outside of this.

Q: Yes, it’s just…, it’s almost impossible

Yes, it is seen to be impossible. Everything is just here. Just stay with this for a minute and then we continue. [Silence]

Whatever is arising let it arise, and you will find that it is within the same space.

Q: Can I come close?

Yes, of course you can.

Q: My heart is pounding.

Yes.

Q: If I could just report. There was this little switch. There’s just this crazy fear, but what you just said…, just let it chill, just let it be there.

Yes, because nothing is too big for this space of Being. It is the mind which comes and says ‘No, no, no, this is too much, too much, too big’. You let it come and you realize it is nothing.

Q: Yes, it feels like the noise of the fan, it has the same…

Yes, it is made up of the same thing. It is this Being-ness.

Q: Okay, so then just from experience, from what is going on right now, it is seen that everything is coming here.

Yes. Try to find the boundaries of this Here; see where this Here stops.

Q: So there are these images coming, but they’re funny actually.

They’re also coming within the same space.

Q: Yes.., just, but I feel I can’t look that way, or… I don’t know…

You can look wherever you like. No conditions.

Q: I don’t know the boundaries.

Yes. So This for which boundaries cannot be found; nothing is too much for This One.

Q: [Laughter] It just feels like the only problem right now is that I don’t have a problem.

Yes.

Q: Wow, I can just see this impulse to just want to ask you something else.

It’s just so simple. It’s just so simple. [Both laugh] What problem can This have in That which everything is appearing and disappearing?…, even if the mind is trying to help you by giving you a visual of this.

Q: I see that though.

You see also that this also is appearing Here.

Q: Yes and it’s going back to the same.

Yes.

Q: Everything.

Everything.

Q: Even your touch.

Exactly, exactly, even the sensations.

Q: It’s coming right back here. There’s just this reflex; it’s crazy. I feel it, this reflex but…, I think I just want to sit with this for a while.

Yes, this is very good.

Q: And if something comes up, I’ll be sure to raise my hand.

You must.

Q: Wow, it’s just…, Okay.

And the way that we say it is that ‘Actually it has always been like this’ but we never really looked at it like this.

Q: Yes, thank you.

Very good. And as you stay with your looking of this, just don’t make any mental conclusions about it; just stay with the looking itself.

Q: And if they come up?

If you expose them, it’s good.

Q2: Father, may I say something?

Yes, my dear.

Q2: I wanted to share that for about a week I’ve wanted to fly to Bangalore and sit in your living room, and tonight I feel like I’m sitting in your living room

Yes, this is very good.

Q2: It is. I feel very connected and it’s nice to have the image of everyone in the sangha sitting in your living room, and I feel no separation.

Very good.

So in this, we had a beautiful exploration where both, very logically, we saw that ‘I cannot be this body’…, and then experientially also we checked and saw ‘It’s just a set of sensations which are appearing inside of my Being’…, which the mind is saying is you-as-the-body.

Everything is Here. So another way to say it is that: This entire manifestation is the body of God, which is You.

Very good.

We cannot become closed to life without believing something about ourself. And the true.., if there is a sign of freedom, then it must be this openness. If we find ourselves becoming too closed, rigid, it can’t really be freedom. And this is not necessarily about the outward expression. It’s more in the sense of this inner constriction or inner ideas about how life should be, and how people should be; then we start believing these things. These are dependent of a sense of a separate me. We cannot be open and suffer at the same time. The mind can say ‘But I’m open, and I’m suffering’. [Laughs] That was a reaction.

And even when it feels like that…, I know there’s this sense that can come that ‘It feels like that’…, then we must be open to this sense of suffering also. If you’re not open to that…, we say ‘Okay, suffering should not come. Everything else can come but suffering should not come’…, then suffering will come. And it’s wonderful if it comes so fast, and you can make a linkage between it. Our trouble in life sometimes is that our prayers are answered with some time lapse, you see? Or the suffering because of our beliefs doesn’t come instantly sometimes after picking up the belief. So we’re not able to make a straight-forward correlation. But if it’s just instant…, you see, the minute you believe something, that suffering (which is bound to come because of that belief), if it came right then, then you would never pick up a belief again, isn’t it? The instant I believed myself to be a person; whack! [Laughs] The slightest belief in something, some attachment; whack! Then how fast would we drop this power of believing, this power of pretending? Very fast!

I take that example…, we were in Delhi two years ago, isn’t it?…, maybe last year and we were walking the roads and there was this 10 rupee note, 15 rupee note on the floor, and people were bending down to pick it up; and there were people who had tied it to a string and they were pulling. And it was April Fool’s day so people were having fun fooling people like this. [Chuckles] But this is what the mind does. It gives us this note and says ‘Here it is, come on. Right here. It’s available to you’. You see? And you go for it. But the whack is not instant, necessarily. So you pick it up and say ‘Yeah, this could actually work. This could actually work. I could actually become a person who has this attribute or quality’ or something, this attachment. But anything that is personal is bound to lead to some suffering eventually. And we’ve seen this. In the past, we are easily able to say [this]. But we are not so easily making this conclusion about our entire life. Because the mind comes up with a fresh 5 dollar bill and something says ‘Maybe this one is not tied to a string. Maybe he’s not fooling me this time’. And we go for it with our belief. And what happens? Again…, [same]. Anything personal does lead to this. It is inevitable. It’s just that the play-in-time seems to take some time for our attachments to cause us some pain. And that is what gives juice to this play. Because if it was just to happen like that April Fool’s day trick, after 3 or 4 notes maybe we don’t bend for the 5^th one, 6^th one. ‘This is what’s going on. I’m not falling for it. Even if I lose 100 rupees, 200 rupees’.  You see? Because you know it is ‘strings attached’. Attachment; strings attached, always.

There is nothing that you need from the mind. You don’t need any of the plans, you don’t need any ideas, you don’t need anything that will help you run your life. Life is already running. Life is happening. The mind is just sitting and making up ideas about it, trying to subtitle life at a very fast rate. And it’s become very good at this.

One of the days [at Mooji Rishikesh satsang] I was doing Hindi translation in the room at the back. And I realized this ‘real time’ translation is a very zen exercise. Because you have no time! Imagine if you had to translate in Hindi or whatever language you had to translate, right now I’m speaking, speaking, speaking and you have to right then… [translate and repeat it]. So if you just let go and let it happen like that, it flows a lot more naturally. But if you sit and say ‘I’m going to do it like this now, you see, he said this, what should I translate to?’ then it’s …

So that intelligence which can do it in ‘real time’ is the one that is running this life. How is it that when we keep the mind out of it, for this which seems like such a mind-y activity…, we need to refer to our vocabulary, we need to refer to so many things; even then when you just let it flow spontaneously, it’s so free, it’s so natural. And even if some words don’t come properly, there’s great spontaneity in that, and there’s no guilt that is arising. It’s just moving.

So, life is moving in real time. It’s the mind which is trying to do the translation, the subtitling. And if we’re living with that interpretation of what life is like, then it’s like leading a second-hand life. ‘Second-hand’…, the mind’s version of what my life is, is called suffering. Pretending to lead the mind’s version of what my life is, is called suffering. (I like this definition actually; just came for the first time today. It’s good.)

Just like this, we see that life is just what it is. In this moment, there’s so much joy. Even if you were to just explore it objectively, you’ll find ‘Look at this!’ We’re in a room in the middle of Bangalore somewhere and there are Beings from all over the world who have come like this, and we just met somewhere, some time, and some connection happened, and then we’re here and we’re in satsang. You see, like this. So beautiful, isn’t it, that this is even happening like this. Just like this; there’s so much wonder, even like this to contemplate. But it’s even more wonderful when even these ideas are dropped. Just…, in the Now. Just…, wow. See, this body is still here. Without even these ideas that ‘This body of Ananta is still here’ [makes face of wonder]…, this voice is like this, it sounds like this. There’s so much to enjoy in this realm in every moment. Even when tears are coming. There’s something that enjoys even this; like the taste, different taste, contrast.

So there is nothing in this realm which Consciousness is not enjoying. [Chuckles] Just like going to different types of movies, you see? I love super-hero movies, you know. But can I watch one every day? No. [Looks contemplative] Probably…[Laughs]… [Looks contemplatively for a moment] Can I watch one every moment of the day? No. [Laughs] If I was only watching super-hero all the time, then I would maybe say ‘Give me a nice comedy’. This is what happens. Like this, every contrast is enjoyed. But if you go with the mind’s version, it’s always saying ‘But you’re making your life a mess’ or it’s saying ‘You’re doing such a great job. You’re too good, you’re too good’. So either pride or guilt. Either pride or false humility. Either we’re feeling too good, too good or too bad, too bad.

This neutrality which comes with just this sense of wonder goes missing when we follow the mind’s version of what life is. Because everything, even now, it can be sitting and picking and choosing. ‘Yeah, this one. Yeah. He’s being very funny today. This is good, good’. Something else. You see this; you can notice even in satsang how it tries to be your friend and help you with what is happening in satsang. We don’t need its help. In fact, it is only confusing you.

Very often, I’m saying ‘A,B,C…, A,B,C’ and the mind is saying ‘X,Y,Z…, X,Y,Z’. That’s why it happens so many times that someone comes and says ‘You said this in satsang yesterday’. And I have two types of trouble with that. One is that I hardly remember what is said in satsang. And the second thing is, what they’re saying, it feels like it never left these lips; it doesn’t feel like it’s come from here. Many times it hadn’t been spoken like that. Why do we remember something, seemingly that this mouth had said, but that never left this mouth? Because we are also listening to what our mind is saying about that; saying ‘This is good. Let’s keep this’…, or saying ‘This one, No’. It’s trying to participate even now. And this is what I mean by ‘Second-hand life’.

Life is just happening as Life, but we’re buying the interpretation from the mind about life. Because if we were not buying this interpretation, nobody could ever say ‘My life is so messed up’. Nobody can ever say ‘My life is messed up’ or ‘My life is terrible’. Because just to have life is such joy, is great wonder. Just to have this body which is such a beautiful instrument; it’s breathing, it’s digesting, the blood is flowing. How many mechanisms are happening in this body to just have this gift of this body present? Even if it’s ill. It’s amazing. No life is such a terrible life unless we’re going with this mind interpretation.

Just we exist. I Exist. Isn’t that such a wonder?

I wonder if you’re with me in this? Just that this sense of existence is here; just this is enough. Do we need anything more than this? I Exist. Consciousness is here. God is present. What else can we need? And who is there to need?

In this moment right now, God is Here. It is You. Now what complaint can You have?

This is the leela, you see? And most of us in satsang have also seen this. I Am. This is Consciousness. In the light of this ‘I Am’ all this is happening. God is Here. And yet I can go with this measly thought which says ‘My life is not good. What should I do with my life? What’s going to happen to my life?’  Who??? It doesn’t exist. It’s God’s Life. This entire manifest creation is God’s body. And God is running it.

Now complain from this place…, [Laughs] …, about anything at all. You cannot, unless you’ve again been listening to this voice as well as your mind’s voice, or only the mind’s voice, even while this has been happening. You cannot do it. And it’s good to check like this: What am I listening to? Even in satsang, what am I listening to? … ‘God is Here. It’s God’s Life. Nobody else is here. I know this. So…, what should I do next?’ [Chuckles] These kind of questions come still, like that pesky mosquito that just doesn’t go away.

Since I was a kid actually mosquitos have been very attracted to me. So I could be sleeping with my brother, you know, while growing up and everybody else is fine. I’d get up the next day with big mosquito bites. So, I had a relationship with mosquitos. And I realized that some days, no matter what you do…, you put repellant, you put the fan on full, you keep the AC temperature completely low, you do all the things possible; and there will always be these one or two mosquitos that will keep buzzing in your ear. They just don’t go. And in the end, you just have to accept them and say ‘Okay, tonight is going to be like this’. [Chuckles] (I can’t believe I’m saying all this in satsang.)

It just comes to ‘Okay, this pesky guy, he keeps saying something or the other, but this is how this life is going to be’. And in that acceptance then actually, automatically our attention moves away from ‘the mosquito’. It’s when we don’t want it to be there, then we’re constantly ‘Is it there? Is it there?’ So even the time when it is not there, we’re still troubled by it. You notice this? That when we want it to go away, then even the times when it is not there, we are troubled by it.

This is a very important point about the mind. Because many of us now, having been in satsang, want the mind to go away. So in the space and the time between the thought, we’re like ‘I hope it doesn’t come back’. A sense of concern can be there. So it has got you even when it is not there, with a sense of fear about it. The mosquito has you even when it is not there when you want the mosquito to go away.

[Laughs]. Is this example making any sense? The mosquito satsang. [Laughs] We’re here to hear the pristine words of nectarine knowledge, and we’re hearing about mosquitos and repellant and …. [Laughs]

It’s good to see like this, you know? That if we come to this state that ‘I just want the mind to go away’ then we’re living in this constant fear that ‘I hope it doesn’t come’. Isn’t it? But if we just accept ‘Yes, this voice will say something or the other, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s bitten me wherever it could now. It’s done. There’s nowhere else left to bite’. Our mind has done this to us. Or it will do. Whatever attachments we still hold on to will be burnt. This is the functioning of Life. So you’ll see that there’s nothing to be concerned about it. And in this acceptance, you’ll find that your attention is not so much getting taken up by the mind; not taken up by worry and guilt.

Be open, just open. And Life is constantly trying to open you up; constantly. And if you’re not open to this opening then it feels like ‘My life is so terrible’. And if you become open to everything, then we can say only ‘Life is so wonderful’. It becomes like that.

So, right now we can audit and see ‘What is it that we are resisting?’

And all of us have some mental boundaries about what should or should not happen in life. And these boundaries, Life is constantly expanding. Sometimes we don’t even know we have these boundaries and ideas, and Life shows us in a mirror. ‘You see, this was still here’. Gone. Whack! You see? And as long as we are open to this whacking.., because in satsang, this whacking is our prayer. And many times we make the prayer, and when it happens, we’re like ‘Why…? How…? Why would this happen to me?’ It is also an answered prayer.

Everything is allowing you to let go of all concepts; even the holiest concepts. Letting go, and coming to unassociated Presence. Even those concepts which seemingly were in service to us, we realize that they never could be; it was just another concept. Better to make a list of all our sacred and holy concepts, and burn them now. Because no concept is true. And Life shows us. So this openness to allow everything to be burnt … [silence] …

So if you’re holding on to some idea of who we are in a clenched fist, with nothing inside, no idea of who we are, Life is constantly trying to open it up. So, the harder we resist this opening, the stronger the pain will be, the stronger the suffering will be.

Very often when you hear this, it can feel like I want you to become passive. Just passive; just this opening means you just sit and let it happen to you, let life…, let everybody come abuse you, say whatever. This is what the mind is painting, this picture for you sometimes. But this is not what I’m saying.

We’re open to even that which is flowing from this [our] body; the action or the inaction which is flowing from here, there is openness and acceptance of that. And that is when you realize that there is nobody who is doing anything at all. All of this is just Life moving.

There’s no Ananta which is moving this hand. There’s no Ananta which is speaking these words. There is no doer in that individual way. There is no experiencer also in that individual way.

So all of this is a play of light and sound, time and space, which Consciousness Itself is doing for its own experiencing. And that Consciousness is Here.

It sounds to me like a great cause of celebration actually. But if you’re not celebrating, at least can we be neutral about it?

What is it really that we are suffering from? What is it that makes life so terrible? If life has given us the space to be in this satsang right now, what a wonderful life it is…, for us to be together in one sangha in the energetic field of satsang. This is so wonderful.

And this doesn’t mean that I’m advocating some sort of behavior which is always like ‘Oh, I’m so happy!!!’ …, not like that, in that forced way. Just in that openness, automatically this sense of joy and wonder can come. You don’t have to force anything, that ‘Oh, I heard today that God is Here so I must always smile’ or something. Not like that. Just to see this to be true and naturally let Life unfold how it wants to, is enough. So just openness like this to whatever Life brings. And especially when it is in contradiction with any idea I have about myself.

Q: Ananta ji, please repeat about the knowingness, which the other gentleman was speaking to you about.

Ananta: Just look fresh. Whatever is being perceived right now, either what I call these external objects through the senses, or internal objects perceived internally. You are aware of this perceiving, isn’t it?

So this perceiving of phenomena is what I call the phenomenal perceiving. And that which knows of this is the Knowingness or the Awareness itself. That which knows that phenomenal perceiving/ perception is happening and also knows when it is not happening, this Knowingness is ever present, you see. Prior even to Presence, it is present.

It’s the simplest thing to know really but it is impossible to understand. If you try to make a concept out of it, then you cannot fathom it. When you remove all layers and keep them aside, this ‘I’ that cannot be removed is this Awareness Itself. Whether perceiving is happening or not happening, there is a Knowing of it.

This is the truest ‘I’ and then this ‘I’ then modulates into many different senses. It can become the sense ‘I Am’, the Presence ‘I Am’. The Beingness is born within the ‘I’ itself as ‘Am’, as Beingness; then becomes the ‘I Am’…, that which we call the waking state or the dream state. And this ‘I Am-ness’ is what we call Consciousness.

Now this ‘I Am’ has the ability to attach ideas to itself, ability to pretend to attach ideas to itself. So it can say ‘I am good, I am bad, I am honest, I am dishonest’…, which are just ideas actually. And yet with the power of belief, we can play as if we are all of this. Then when we are playing as individualized Consciousness, ‘I am a person’ Consciousness, the jivatma, then there is potential for all of this suffering in the play. Because suffering is personal, you see.

So this ‘I’ is then playing as ‘I Am-ness’, and ‘I Am-ness’ is playing as ‘a person’. This is all that the game is about.

No matter what’s happening in the appearance right now, the truth is unshaken. It could be the most beautiful appearance or it could be the most horrendous. The mind could be saying ‘This is the best. I just want this!’ or the mind could be saying ‘But this is the worst!’

And yet, the truth of what we are, in either of these, is unshaken. Even when there is a strong sense that ‘This is happening to me’ or ‘How could this be happening to me?’ Even when this belief is there, this sense is there, actually in reality nothing ever happened to us.

We can say that this quiet place is within us. We can speak like that. But actually it is the moving place which is within the quiet place, you see, which is within us. Everything that is moving is within the silence.

There is no greater venture, or adventure, than the realization of the Self. We don’t actually have to wait for anything to happen. The sense can be that ‘I want to be done with this’. But in this also…, that ‘I want it to be done, I want it now’ we are adding some conditioning to ourself. The conditioning of the ‘I’ that even wants freedom, this we don’t need. Because right now, if I was to ask any of you ‘Show me some bondage in this moment, now, now, now’ …, before I give you a chance to think about it, you cannot find. Only if I give you a chance to think about it and go to your beliefs about yourself, then you can give me some seeming causes of bondage. But prior to any of that You are inherently free. No one can take your freedom away. So that which we have been looking for has always been here prior to the looking. This recognition of the Self is always available here.

So if this recognition is available in this instant, and all that is left really is getting rid of prior conditioning, then there is nothing that the ‘I’ can do. The ‘I’ conditioning, which is the ‘I’ itself, tries to play the role of ‘Now I’m going to help get rid of the conditioning’. Many stories we buy from this ‘I’ is actually adding to fresh conditioning.

So, now, let’s recap: Now, You are free. Before I let you think about it, You are free. You cannot pretend to be bound unless you start thinking about it, start believing your thoughts about it. That’s why I’ve started saying ‘Now. Now. Now. Now. Now’. Because this ‘Now’ is just now. And Now, You are free. And in this instant, you have this recognition that That which is Here cannot be bound actually.

And yet I say ‘Keep coming to satsang’ because I know that the instant recognition that is available right now doesn’t automatically imply that all prior conditioning is gone. But again, there is nothing that ‘you’ can do about it. If there’s a feeling that ‘I must do something about it’ then simply…, like yesterday we were saying, ‘What can we do about it?’

We said that ‘I have given you the simple pointing: Don’t believe your next thought’. Sometimes it doesn’t seem so simple; I’m aware of this. [Laughs] If that doesn’t seem to work, then there’s option two, which is: Just inquire into who you are. ‘Who am I really?’ If that doesn’t work, then just keep coming to satsang. In coming to satsang, all this prior conditioning will get wiped away.

When you say ‘Even satsang is not happening. I’m not enjoying, I’m not feeling like being with you’…, some mental stuff is coming like that, then you can take some meditation practice. If none of the prior apply…, only then. So you say, ‘Okay, but I don’t have the capacity, the inclination. Been there, done that. It’s not helping me. What should I do then?’  I say ‘You chant some mantra. Take your favorite form of The Formless One and invoke It on chanting a mantra’. If you say, ‘Not even that. I can’t even do that’. Then I say ‘Okay, move your limbs about a little bit’…, [Laughs] …, ‘do some hatha yoga’. If you say ‘Not even that’. I say ‘Okay, even if that is not happening, then just pray, hand it over to God’. You see, it’s full duality in doership, but still pray. If even prayer is not happening like this…, then go to sleep. [Laughs] And yesterday when I said this, someone said ‘What if someone has a sleep disorder?’ [Laughs] I said ‘I’ve never experienced it, and I only speak from my experience so I can’t help you with that. For that, you need to go to a sleep expert’.

But I don’t feel that it is going from harder to simpler. It actually feels like we’re adding more and more complexity. So just to…, in this effortlessness, right now, not buy what the mind is saying next. It’s the simplest thing. It is the buying which is effort.

Let’s try as if the mission was the opposite. Everyone…, when we come to satsang, we talk about how to get rid of the suffering, isn’t it? How to be rid of misery. So today, what if we try the opposite. Let’s try to become fully miserable…, [Laughs] …to become fully miserable. How will you achieve it? Can you achieve it without a thought? In your natural state, can you become miserable? Can you suffer really? You will find ‘No’. You need the help of this mind.

So some of you here have not heard my ATM example. It’s my all time favorite. So, we want misery. So we go to this ‘Any-Time Misery’ machine, called the ATM, which is the mind. So how do we access this Any-Time Misery? First we must put our attention toward what the mind is saying. And the mind will come with some thought…, ‘I’m not free yet’ for example, or ‘I don’t deserve to be free. I’ve not been in so many satsangs’. You see? Some thought attention has gone to. It seems like it is real, the thought. But if the thought was ‘I’ve turned into an alligator’…, you will not believe this, you see; although attention went to it. ‘I’m now a pink elephant’. So, the thought came like that. Attention went to it.

So the ‘Attention To Mind’ (ATM) card you have put in, the ATM card. But it also needs your PIN number, your Personal Identification, to say that this is true; to say that this is meaningful or this is relevant. And only after we put the Attention To Mind (ATM) card in, and the Personal Identification (PIN) belief in, can we get some misery from the mind.

But if you keep doing this, and then saying ‘I want to be free from misery’ then it doesn’t work, you see?  Because you are accessing the ATM; taking out misery with your attention and belief. And at the same time believing this thought that ‘I really want to be free from misery’.

You ARE free right now.

[Silence]

Unless you think about it.

But also what happens is, I say ‘You are free right now’ and I can see sometimes that your attention is going to the mind saying ‘Is this true?’ The mind will not give you a certificate of freedom. ‘No, no, no. Maybe he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Maybe he’s from some other planet or something; not here’. [Laughs] The mind will say these kind of things.

So, who do you want to listen to? Do you want to listen to what is being shared here, or do you want to listen to what the mind is saying? Because both ways are pure trouble actually. It’s just that they elongate this seeming spiritual journey. So, I’m saying ‘Okay. You’re stuck here, no?’ Whether you like it or not, for some time you’re stuck in this room now. So at least for this time, can we just say that ‘For this time, I will just hear this one that is speaking from here, and not believe anything that the mind is saying?’ What can we lose? We can’t mess up our whole life because we listened to this for a few minutes.

This is openness in satsang. Because otherwise we’re having this three-sided conversation. I’m speaking, you’re listening, you’re giving it to the mind, the mind is saying whatever…, and we’re listening to the mind. This three-sided conversation does not work. In fact it is more trouble.

What am I saying? I am saying ‘You are free now’. And you check: You find this to be true. If you check in every moment, you find this to be true.

But the mind says ‘But my feeling is still…, my feeling…, my feeling’. You see, the mind itself is saying ‘Oh, my thoughts are still distracting …, distracting’.

Nothing is happening to You, that which Witnesses these feelings and thoughts.

Is someone else witnessing these feelings and thoughts for you?

Are You not directly the Witness of all of this?

Whatever is appearing in your outside world and your seeming inside world, are You not the Witness?

What is happening to this Witness? Can something that is seen, can anything that is seen, touch this Witness?

And is the Witness really interested in the life of whatever your supposed-name is? Or just Witnessing…, without any real concern?

It is just Witnessing without any real concern for what is appearing. It’s just that we have invested too much in the idea that ‘This is my life. This is my story’. Because we’ve invested too much in this idea. And I’m saying there is no return on this investment. That’s why your mind will fight this. There is no return on this investment of yourself as an ego. There is no need to pick up any thoughts about your individual existence. In fact, it is only asking for trouble. It’s only an invitation to play more; personally. Even the seeker identity, you are not. The one that wants freedom; you are not that.

Just Right Now: what is Here?

And who witnesses it?

Who are you, right in this moment?

Before you can even remember your own name, Who are you?

Are you not this unchanging, unmoving witness?
Do you have to become the witness?

Or are you naturally Here as That?

Do you have to even stay as That?
Can you leave This?

Q: There is overwhelming dullness, losing interest in worldly things. When I ask the question ‘Who is experiencing dullness?’ the answer is ‘Me’.

A: So ‘the answer I get’…, but we are not interested in the answer like this. You see this is like saying ‘What is the capital of India?… New Delhi’. You see, that’s not really an inquiry, that is just a mental questioning. So we’re not really interested in the mental questioner/answer like this.

When the answer comes as a thought which is saying ‘Me’ then we must look at it and say ‘Who is this thought arising for?’  Who is witnessing this thought? What does this one look like? Is this one effected by the dull-dullness? You see? So use even this answer coming as ‘Me’ and say ‘Who me?’ Where is this me? What does this one look like? See?

Don’t let the mind derail you with these simple cookies, you see. Whatever it is saying in response to the inquiry let it say, and you use it for the inquiry and say ‘Who is this thought appearing to?’ Sometimes it can feel like energetically something is being obstructed, or emotionally something is being obstructed; use even that to ask ‘Who is suffering from this?’ Is there a sufferer? Nothing can really get in the way of your inquiry. Just simply like this, if the mind is saying ‘Me, of course me, what do you mean who? Me!’ you know it says these kind of things, just look and say ‘Who is looking at these thoughts?’ and the mind say ‘This is useless, you’ve done it so long, you don’t find the answer’. Who is looking at these thoughts?

This is what I mean by openness. If there is openness for these words here, more than there is openness for the words from your mind, then definitely it cannot be a long journey. Just a simple checking about who you are. But if you’re more open, or as open, to the words of the mind as you are to the words of Satsang then we can have a very long walk together.

Q2: Father when I do self-inquiry these thoughts which I have picked up earlier keep coming up. I get an immediate answer that I am ‘The Self.’ I’m not able to go further.

A: Yes. Same like this. So thought itself will try to have the answer for you ‘You are The Self, I am The Self”. So who is witnessing this thought? Who are these thoughts appearing to? What does this one look like? Does this one want freedom? Is it resisting any experience in life?  Is it concerned about any appearance?

If you find that the answer to all of these is no; and you have checked that ‘I am That, I am This’ …, after checking, (not just a mental inference), then it is the recognition of your True Self. And this recognition is available now.

But remember that in spite of the recognition it doesn’t mean is the end of all conditioning, only in very rare cases; in fact not really in any case because it is said even about Bhagavan, who although he had this clear recognition where he felt like he’s dying and he wanted to be there to experience his death, but even after that clear recognition he went into silence for 10 years?  How many years? For about 12 years, you see. So this being in silence and not immediately sharing from this recognition is very beautiful because it helps you dissolve the rest of the conditioning which can be there. So this assimilation is very useful.