A Modern Parable for Neti Neti - 24th January 2018

If I give to all of you a magical basket in which we could put everything ever-changing—a magical basket which can contain everything that you ought to put inside—what would you do with the world? This is the basket. Our job is to put everything that is changing into the basket. What do you do with the world? Put it in the basket. What about this body here? Because many feel like they put the world in the basket but leave the body out. So, put the body also in the basket. Therefore, all the situations that we call the body—pain, pleasure—what about the emotional sense? We put all these thoughts, all doing and getting or not doing and not getting, or the past and our projections of future imagination, space... all in the basket.

Everything that is subject to change itself, everything that has a quality... where does it go? In the basket. Sorry, I'm wrong to put everything. Let's see. Is all of this changing? Put it into the basket itself. What is the quality of that one which is looking at the basket? So, the basket is nothing but a modern metaphor for a very ancient process called Neti Neti. So here, the point of Neti Neti is not to push away anything, not to exclude anything, but just to check: what else is there? All this element of change is there. Is there something which is unchanging? Is there something about me which is free from birth and death, beyond time and space? You are that. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti.