All Perceptions Come and Go and Are Therefore Unreal – 10th October 2022
Saar (Essence)
Ananta emphasizes that the absolute is unmissable right now if one stops using the mind as a spiritual instrument. He points to the formless awareness that is already present and beyond all perception.
The only difficulty in the spiritual quest is the use of the wrong instrument: the mind.
True happiness is only found in the discovery of the Self; everything else is ephemeral.
Don't look for form; look for that which is formless and does not come and go.
intimate
Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.
All of us have noticed that if you try to avoid the thought of something, or you try to avoid thinking of an image of something the mind produces—so they say, "Don't think of a banana"—then that can become a constant step. So we accept the nature of the mind in this way, that it is showing us what we said we don't want to see. The hypnosis is that when it does show up without any invitation or rejection, we seem to take it to be a helpful proposal or a useful thing for us. But on what basis do we know that? Because from what we observe, if you say "I don't want," then that seems to show up even more. Show up here. So really, the point I want to make is much broader than that. It is that the only struggle in the spiritual quest, the only difficulty in the spiritual quest, is the use of the wrong instrument for spirituality. So if you switch out of the wrong instrument, then the truth is unmissable, you see. God is unmissable. The Supreme, the Absolute, is really apparent. But now what will happen if you insist? If you insist that, "No, no, I must use the hammer to measure the size of the zone," I think it stopped you from trying. So you have to set your timeline and say, "How long will I drive with methods which I have tried and they don't work?"
And then you can observe also in satsangs and groups and things like that, that the process of spiritual thinking seems to go on and on and on like that. And maybe that itself seems to become like a comfort zone for us to be in, because half-jokingly saying, like, we get used to a comfortable hell. We get used to a hell that is familiar, so it starts to feel comfortable. And then you feel like, "No, no, but to step out of this I need a guarantee," you see. "What if I lose what I already have?" But what you already have is your concepts, your notions about what this is, and it's best that you lose that. That which can cause you suffering is to experience hell in the human condition, you see. There is no other hell. And to be empty of that true apparency of what you are is the only heaven there is. So heaven or hell are based on how Consciousness chooses to play. And referring to you as Consciousness, you can choose to see the reality of what you are, or you can go with the mind's proposals of what the mind is proposing you to be, which is limited, which is body-mind, which is suffering, which wants. So it's all a question of right now. Not a question of keeping, holding, becoming—none of them.
As I'm saying this, and if I say to you that the Absolute is within your reach right now, your mind will come and say, "No, no, no, I'm not ready for it yet," you see. Or, "How will I know if it's true? How can I find God and keep what I value in this life and world?" So the leap of faith, or the quantum leap into this all—as Guruji says, "You be the cow that jumped over the moon"—is really saying that you have to leap over all these make-believe ideas. And you cannot hedge your bets. You can't hedge your bets and say, "No, but first guarantee me that, you know, my family will still like me and my monthly salary will still come, and then if you guarantee me that, and then you see, now I need God." Then that's the best, because I want a Janaka-style enlightenment. So we need that sort of guarantee. And what do you find? It's not that the discovery of God is in opposition to any of that. God doesn't want to meet you and then oppress you and say, "Oh, give up your family, give up your job." Otherwise, this creates this. The house life for Guruji also, it created the doubts that if you keep going like this, you'll be a poor beggar on the streets of Brixton.
So this fear comes, you see. And what our family also tells us is the same thing. All our families will tell us, "It's okay, it's okay, but do it in a balance. Don't go overboard. Why are you spending all your time in Thiru?" So I'm not saying no, you see. That's what the usual voice is. It comes from the family: "But have a balance about it, and then take care of your responsibilities, and then there will be a time." But the mind has made the notion that God is opposed to all of these things. And all these things, if you find God, then God will say, "No, no, you see, no, no, you must give up your family, you must give up your home." No, later you can come to the discovery of the Lord here and now. And that discovery is not necessarily in opposition to how your life is playing out. But trust me that whichever way it does play out, in the apparency of your Atma Gyan, you see, you will not exit. I mean, even those who truly care about you will at a particular point appreciate that. Don't expect it instantly, but they will appreciate the grace of that. So if they really care about you, they want to see you happy. True happiness is only found in the discovery of the Self. Everything else is just ephemeral, transitory, floating clouds.
So what makes this discovery? Why are there millions and millions of seekers and very few, seemingly very few, who actually find what they're seeking? What is the difficulty? "I want to have it like desire. I want to have it my way," you know. Now, if you met the Absolute, it's absolutely hello. How would you know this is the Absolute? Is the Absolute recognized? Thank you. But suppose you were not interested, you just whatever, and you met that. How would you know? What are the reports I hear? "If I experience bliss, then I know." So you need a third-party report. You're meeting the Absolute, but you want some other emotion also to show up to confirm, "Ah, this is... I'm confirming the ID, this is the Absolute." And what are you going to use to confirm that which is the timeless? Something that appears in time? This is the fallacy in there. The meeting with the timeless, the meeting with the perception-less, with the attribute-less—we still rely on that which comes with attributes to say that was God. Just because you cannot feed the Absolute to your mind doesn't mean that is not a true meeting.
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So this is what spiritual seekers are doing. They're saying, "Where is my bliss? Why doesn't it reach the...?" It's fine in satsang, but when I leave into the marketplace of the world... Okay, same question through the ages. In the Upanishads, thousands of years ago, the same question. In talks with Ramana, a hundred-something years ago, same question to Papaji, same question to Guruji, same question in front of you. In satsang, it seems so clear, it seems so apparent, unmissable. But when I go in the world, I lose it, you see. But in satsang, are you getting something that came now? Yes, because you're an energetic support. But use that and see that in the... independent of that, you see, independent of that, what are you discovering? It is support, no? It is not the main meal. It's the starter. So what's the main meal? Use this energetic support to confirm the unchanging nature of the reality that you are discovering.
So when the mind compresses... because I am not here to make you into a satsang addict. I am not here to say, "Ah, yeah, the feed that you get, you know, in satsang time, but actually then after that you can't manage." I am showing you that which is always there. You're absolutely right that the support can help you see, but use that support to take the leap of faith, to take the quantum leap into the discovery of what you are. Discovery of what you are. And that does not come and go. That does not change. It is also not that it is unverifiable when you're not in the presence of satsang. It is also not that it only seems that the hypnosis of the mind, or the ability to hypnotize of the mind, so to get amped up when you're not in a certain environment and it seems to reduce when you're in a certain environment. Even this could change, because many times you could come into satsang... "I can't hear you like this blasting means." But usually, even for those who have not been in satsang, they could come into this.
My older cousin came. He's a lot older than me, so I've always been like the kid cousin that he took behind his bike. He visited from Roorkee, so he was here for a few days. So I got him to the satsang side. Yeah, it's very nice. So then I got him to meet some other members in the building, and he went back and then he's feeling like... I could tell, but his older cousin ego sort of just said... he said, "I want to move to Bangalore so that I can come and sit in that room of yours." So it prevented him from saying, "I want to spend more time with you," because then that would be like not the big brother. It's not easy to say. Yes, so it can happen like that.
So when I was asking, "How would you know if the Absolute came to you?" that's a very relevant question. Can you have a mental category and say, "Like this, like this, like this, like this, then yes"? Suppose you're searching for something and you don't know how you will know if you found it. How will you undertake that search? You have to search for something, okay, and you say, "Okay, so how will I know I found it?" "I don't know." So is that our condition? Not really, because some clues have been given that we have sort of discarded. So number one clue is what? In Vedanta, all perceptions, they are Maya. They come and go. They are not real. That really narrows down the search. All perceptions, they come and go and therefore are unreal. No, it's basically a thought experiment. There's no reality in that statement, you see, because that is also perceived. But it's a useful thought experiment. So if all perceptions are taken to be unreal for the experiment, then what? What does that leave for us? Isn't that the number one clue that has been given everywhere in all cultures, all scriptures? Don't look for form. Look for that which is formless.
How? So we are coming to a point where we're making that which seemed to be so difficult... "How do I search? I want the Atma Darshan of myself." So now we are narrowing it down. Now, beyond perception, have you noticed anything? Have you recognized anything? Although it is told that the Self does not come and go. Beautiful second clue. So, not perceivable, does not come and go. So where can I start looking? It does not come and go; it must be here. So right now, what is beyond perception? Give me an idea. With me? And you look deep in thought. You cannot calculate your way to it. So what right now is beyond perception? What cook is here? Awareness of this moment now. Confusing to anyone? New one? Don't worry, it's not a class test or something. And this time to make it as accessible and quote-unquote real as possible, the recognition of the Self, it seems like usually in usual relations it seems like, "I have to do this and I have to do so many steps and so much and so much this and that, only then it can become apparent."
I'm just trying to make it very, very simple. Very, very simple. It is actually a universal discovery available for everyone. So we just use two of the clues provided in Vedanta. One is that it is not a perception, you see, and second is that it is always here. So what in your own discovery is like that? Is it awareness? What about that answer? Is it just conceptual? I know many of you are waiting to say, "But the mind says..." We can wait on that. "But the mind says..." What do you say right now? I'm not asking whether your mind is recognizing the truth. I'm asking you. Yes or no? You cannot find this in two different ways in the sense that it will not appear to one like that and appear to another like that. So what I'm basically saying is you can't do this wrong, because the unperceivable is discovered qualitylessly, and differences can only come in qualities. So the formless, you see, cannot be discovered like, "Oh, how can I be sure that Ananta came to the same discovery as I am coming to?" Because you can't do it wrong. It is impossible to see that, to recognize that which is beyond perception, beyond sight, smell, color, taste—all of that. How can you come to it differently? And whatever tricks the mind can play, I have told you. So I have said that if it is creating like a dark empty space and it is saying, "See, this is awareness, this dark empty space," you see, so use that. Ask yourself: What is witnessing even that? Is that dark or light, empty or full? Who's having trouble? See, don't worry. Personalization's pay attention. But I'm seeing right now, right now, what stops you?
It is beyond perception, beyond sight, smell, color, taste—all of that. How can you come to it differently? And whatever tricks the mind can play, I have told you. So, I have said that if it is creating like a dark, empty space and it is saying, 'See, this is awareness, this dark empty space,' you see? So use that. Ask yourself: What is witnessing even that? Is that dark or light, empty or full? Who's having trouble? See, don't worry. Personalization is paying attention, but I'm seeing right now. Right now, what stops you? Have I said you need to resolve this first? You need to fix that first? You need to do... have I said that? No. You just have to be open and empty for one more. Who are you trying to convince? Is it the mind?
Now, now, what's the idea? What's the idea now? Any idea takes time. Means... means who are you right now? Who's buying the idea? How do you know? Where will you go for the answer? Is something to catch? I don't care what the mind was. No, no, listen, listen, listen. This is a conversation that we can have for lifetimes, you see? If my question will be to you and your response will be 'This is what my mind is saying,' we can go on. We can go on and on and on with this for lifetime after lifetime. I will keep saying this; the mind will keep saying that. That is the design of this plane. Your intuitive voice will point you to the truth and your mind will point you to the false. So if both are left in the playground alone, there's no resolution there. But you are the resolution to this because all of this play is for you, you see? So don't tell me what the mind is saying. What is your recognition to this thing?
Yes, you see, the nullify the whole thing. Then everything is for... for if I'm not buying anything from the mind or something, I just wanted to question.
Okay, so all the questions that have been designed by the sages are designs so that you cannot capture them in your mind. They take you beyond the mind and you come to the intuitive insight. Okay, all finished. Um, so whether you take the Zen tradition—Zen koans are offered to you. 'How can the goose escape the jar?' You know this? 'How can the goose escape the jar?' The Vedantic tradition of finding that which does not come and go. Bhagwan's question: 'Who am I?' Guruji's invitation with all the beautiful questions which are beyond the mind. 'Was he born?' Can we answer this from any mental perspective? We can't. So any of these questions are not possible to grapple with in the head.
So if you look at anything, even if you look at a different tradition which is Bhakti oriented, so you talk about devotion now, you talk about love, you see? Where you talk about trust. Can we really know what it is in the mind? So really the attempt is to give you one thing which you can hold on to which allows you to go beyond the mind in the looking. So in Bhagwan's inquiry, 'But who are you?' he knows fully well that you cannot answer it here and you definitely cannot see it as a perception. So that is why it is a very important question.
So if I say, 'Are you aware now?' and you don't need to go to the mind, you don't need to go to any perception, and yet if I ask you, 'How do you know?' 'Don't know. No, I don't know. I just know.' And that 'I just know' seems too uncool, so we call it intuitive insight because that sounds cool. 'How do you know?' 'Intuitively.' Yeah, that's a good answer that my mind can accept. If I just say 'I know,' then the mind beats me. So your awareness you know intuitively, your presence you know intuitively, love you know intuitively, your eternal timeless nature you know intuitively, that you are not in this universe you know intuitively, that time and space do not affect you you know intuitively. All the good stuff you only know intuitively; all the rubbish you know mentally.
Like as a parent, I can see this, right? I love my kids, but how do I know? It's not on the basis of some emotion, because sometimes the emotion is dislike, anger, and then I love my kid, isn't it? Or even like you may say, 'Oh Father, we love you,' but that is not always an emotion that you're feeling. Sometimes it's very frustrating to be in satsang. It's not a constant emotion and you say, 'Yes, yes, we love you,' but still you know, 'I love you, but...' like that. So how do you know? The same intuitively. Yeah, first time I felt like my life is now taken care of. How did I know? Intuitively.
Some of us, we just met in Rishikesh on the street somewhere and you felt like you wanted to be in satsang here. How did you know? Intuitively. There was nothing like this young boy in T-shirt and jeans—now not so young, but that time, yeah, he's wearing superhero shirts in Rishikesh. So obviously not compelling you to say, 'I can be your Guru,' and yet something... I don't know, something that I don't know, something of intuition. Now, now all of life can safely be lived like that. You will lose only the valueless if you let go of the mind. You will not lose anything of value, and it is not opposed to any aspect of the human being. But you will lose falseness, you will lose egotism, you will lose pride, you will lose guilt, you will lose all the 'Grade B' emotions as I call them, because they rely on a false identity or misunderstanding of you to be there.
The thing is, it's become more of a monologue because I can usually predict what question comes in. So if I say you must now live intuitively, then the question usually is, 'So how do I know?' Or that at least what we should ask: 'How do I know if I'm being intuitive?' I mean, don't be mental. Live headlessly or live intuitively. Then you should ask, 'How do I know?' because the mind can pretend to have the words of satsang. It can even pretend to copy the style of satsang. It may say to you, 'And my beloved child, do this, go there.' It can propose. So remember that the spiritual aspect of your head is not your intuition. Spiritual constructs that you have in your head are still constructs in your head, and to value those is to value the spiritual ego or to pose as if you're the spiritual ego. So the posture that 'I know something spiritually' is not intuitive; it's still conceptual.
So how do you know that you're being intuitive as who you are? The parent to you as who you are, as a parent to you, you're being intuitive because only intuitively you know yourself as a parent. Only intuitively you know yourself as a parent. So this I call open and empty. And I have lessons. Can you confirm to me—like this would be also a rare confirmation in the world—okay, suppose at work, yeah, at work you have not checked, you don't know who you are, all that. That two years ago, if somebody had told you that for one hour thrice a week you will live in Atma darshanam, you would say, 'I would take that deal.' You would say, 'I'll take that deal. I just want a moment of insight about myself.' Now as that is being made available to you, the mind is always saying, 'What more? More.' Yes, sir. It is saying, 'Hey, here it's fine, but what about at work?'
So what are you confirming? You see? What are you confirming? You are confirming that in your second satsang you have gone beyond where Arjuna went in that conversation with Krishna, because he was still stuck on trying to see the Virat Roop, and now you are getting a version of the timeless, you see? And now your trouble is that, 'But it doesn't stay when I'm at work.' That's a very good first-world problem, I think, because how many spiritual seekers can even say that? So what is the best gift you can give to that friend who will go to work tomorrow morning? Is the best gift to fully, fully have the darshan of yourself right now, isn't it? Not to think about him now and then think about this one when you're there. Not the job. That is not the job. The job is to meet God fully in your heart right now. Okay?
So then godliness percolates organically to the rest of your life as well without you sitting there as a judge of that percolation, by the way, because that judgment will become the oppression. So if you are trying to help him and that one is just waiting to come to satsang, then nobody is actually being helped. It's a mind trick because the mind will say, 'But all this is fine, but what about that one?' So while you're having breakfast, eat the breakfast. While you're having lunch, eat lunch. If you keep thinking about lunch at breakfast time and dinner at lunch time, notice the trick of the mind in that. You're being introduced to that highest discovery which at the beginning of spiritual seeking we would have said, 'Just one moment, just one moment of the Self, okay, is enough for me, Lord, please.' Now as the mind is realizing it's in trouble, its dominance is being pushed away and being replaced by God's love, by God's heart. 'Yeah, yeah, all this is fine, but... but what about that one? Fix that one.' You are meeting God, see? Is that not enough for the moment?
Are you noticing the trick? Don't solve it for a past you or a future you. All that is the figment of your imagination. You don't have to believe all this now. Right now, are you finding what I am pointing you to? And if there is a past you and a future you, this is the best gift you can give to them. What is getting in your way? Getting in the way of your recognition discovery at this moment? Search in this moment. Search. Sorry, with what tool can we search? Show me a timeless tool with which we can search that. I mean that tool which is not in time with which we can search. So when I say to you, 'What is getting in the way in this moment right now?' even for the proposal to come from the head that 'This is blocking you,' that is taking time. Before that, the search is done, discovery is done, the recognition is done.
So if you play with temporal tools, you will be stuck in time, okay? If you play with tools which are about time, you'll be stuck in time. Perception takes time. Perception takes time. Contemplation takes time. Conceptualization takes even more time. How will you discover the timeless with those tools? Wrong. How many setups you need to do to walk around this room? Third question. Trying to grasp God with your head is the same thing, or even to hope for a mental confirmation of the discovery of the truth is the same thing. If someone is here, what are you doing? 'Oh, I'm thinking about God.' Okay, as far as the world is concerned, I may even bless them—better than thinking about other things—but thinking about God is not the mechanism with which to find God. And thinking about the way, 'What are the ways in which I should find God?' is even worse. And thinking whether you actually are finding it or no is even worse.
Do you have to believe you're sitting? Can there be a... if you mean that there is a conviction which is beyond belief. Mostly when people say, 'I need a conviction in God, no, I need a conviction in God,' they're talking about a very strongly amplified belief, you see? But nobody says, 'Oh, I believe that I have to eat breakfast,' or 'I believe that I'm sitting right now.' I am showing it to you more apparently than that you're sitting. Even to confirm that you're sitting needs a step. I am showing you steplessly. Try it out, you see? First you confirm that you are, then you confirm that you are sitting. You... that you are. What did you use to confirm? You may say, 'Oh, I confirmed that I am a body,' but before you confirm 'I am a body,' you confirmed 'I am.' 'I am a body'—a body confirmation came later, but 'I am' was there. On what basis? That is where the mind cannot help you, and this is where spiritual seekers get confused.
Don't feed it into your head, my dear. If you try, keep trying to see me, it won't happen, you see? I heard about MCT oil. MCT oil, when you're fasting, anything is very helpful because you don't have to go through like... or don't you have a liver or something? It doesn't need to go through your liver or something to digest; it goes straight as energy into the bloodstream. In the same way, what you're hearing in satsang is like MCT oil. It doesn't need to go through your head. You will need it very, very obviously. If you try to meet it through your head, you will struggle with it because in no way is what I am saying confirmable through perception or through your highest computation. It needs a simplicity which you introduce yourself to.
It doesn't need to go through your liver or something to digest; it goes straight as energy into the bloodstream. In the same view, what you're hearing in satsang is like MCT oil. It doesn't need to go through your head. You will need it very, very obviously. If you try to meet it through your head, you will struggle with it because in no way is what I am saying conformable through perception or through your highest computation. It needs a simplicity which you introduce yourself to when I ask you: Are you aware? Okay, the mind hates you for that. When you even nod or say yes, it is you. It shouts, 'Yes, see, I don't know, say something!' But you can't help it. It's just too obvious that you don't even wait for the mind to protest.
This is the third type of knowledge because nobody has ever seen this awareness. It's like everybody confirming what I have in my hand. What do I have? So, suppose everybody said 'awareness' and you were the only one sitting there, it was like The Emperor's New Clothes. So, I really hope that that is not the case when I have this question. Because everybody says yes, then we have to say it's just too obvious, you know? There's nothing that your mind can even see. You may—sometimes some people say no, more like 'I don't know who that is.' That is a way, but that was not the question right now. Are you aware?
Now you are meeting a strange knowledge which you are not perceiving. So, it's beyond 'seeing is believing.' We talked about belief. Like in the world, it is seeing is believing, but this you're not even seeing. Is it operating out of belief because you read 'I Am That' before you came to satsang? So, from there you heard 'I am aware,' so you've taken that to be the gospel? Then you may say, 'Oh, but it is an inference because I am aware of my perceptions. If my perceptions were not there, then I could not confirm it.' But the coming and going of perception is witnessed by whom? So, don't let these simple mind tricks bamboozle you, hypnotize you. It's nothing.
So, this awareness is yourself. It is the highest; it is the Absolute. In what way can you doubt your recognition now? How can you do the recognition of the unperceivable wrong? Try to do the recognition of the unperceivable wrongly. Can you do it? No. So, the doubting Thomas in our heads can keep saying, 'No, no, but what Ramana found is different from what you are finding.' How can it be different? Different nature? Different quality? But this is attributeless, formless. How can you find the formless in two different ways? And by ways, I don't mean like you can find it many different ways which are the preparatory sort of context preparation, but the discovery is the same.
So, do it wrong. Instead of worrying about whether you're doing it wrong, try to do it wrong. What is the next worry? 'But can I hold on to this? And can I hold on to this at work?' So, what you try and do is try and leave it with all your effort. Pretend that if you're working right now, think of your manager, think of your terrible clients, think of whatever you want, and lose it in reality. See if you can. It's a subtle experiment. So, as you open and empty, is this apparent to you or not? What effort is needed? Can this be lost? What do you say? Not what your mind says.
Now, the majority of the mind's doubts and objections will have the central notion of 'What about me?' And that will be again centered around the notion of, 'Okay, now if this is true, then how should I live?' Now, I want to tell you something very important: there is no single way to live. Consciousness experiences itself in all shapes, sizes, colors, varieties, everything. So, the mind says, 'But then how am I supposed to live the right life, a good life?' A good life is to live moment to moment, guided by the heart, guided by God, guided by intuition—whatever term you want to use. That is the only way to determine a good life, the right life. Yeah, I don't mean the 'good life' like lifestyles as written here; I mean something good, a truthful life.
Humans have tried this for thousands and thousands of years to create a templated version of what the right life should be. It has not worked. You had the Epicureans, you had the Stoics, you had in all cultures, every tradition, you had so many different people proposing that this is the right way to live. And we talked about it the other day where even in religion, religious scriptures usually have the spiritual aspects of the discovery of God and the temporal elements of what is suggested at that period of time as the best way of living. But what happens in the human condition is because the spiritual aspect everybody feels we can't understand that, so leave that; this part we can understand, so let's get into that. So, everybody gets into that.
So, the pandits will say, 'You keep doing this Puja every day.' Every tradition, you have those who want to make the way of life as if the way of life is going to help the meeting with God. Whereas the meeting with God is without any mechanics, without any steps. Even a worldly father is not cruel enough to say, 'Only when my kids do all of this, only then they are good enough to meet me.' Why would God make steps or prerequisites? I'm thinking about it. So, stop templateizing the best way to live or what you have to do now that you have discovered the truth. 'How can I do this and how can I do that?'
It's like, 'I did everything, I did all my sadhana, you see, and came to the Supreme Intelligence, came across the discovery of the Supreme Intelligence, and now I will tell it how to live.' So, to try and templateize that discovery of that intelligence which is running this entire universe into some conceptual notion of what you should be like is pure buncombe—Arvind's word which I've co-opted as my own. So, what is the right way? It is open and empty, moment to moment, guided by the heart. It will lead to the right outcomes. According to your head? Maybe not. You know, who is the true arbiter of the right? Who has the power, the ability to judge your heart, to judge your intuition, to judge God's presence in your heart? What power has the ability to judge the rightness and the wrongness of that? No power.
And this is the leap of faith. The leap of faith because it goes beyond our boundaries, our conceptual boundaries of what we think we should do, what we think we should do, what is the right way to live, what is the wrong way to live. To return to the innocence of a child. What kind of innocent child would you be if you already knew everything? It's just a lack of trust in the right hand which your heart is giving me. But in a way, although the discovery is immediate, in the world it can play out as if you are going through a process of development of trust in that. That is fine. Come and sit here. What to do? What to report? Just okay.
So, I think we just dropped the question itself. Yes, no, no, we had cases where in inquiry we can see, like the one who's on the hot seat can see that there is no doer. No, so that was—ah, it's so clear there's no individual doer here. Now, what should I do? Now, what should I do?
Because this question has become the human habit, because we are convinced that we are useless unless we know what to do. Now, the problem with this 'what to do' question is that it needs a context, and this context is being taken away from you. So, if you are using even satsang to situate yourself in the middle of a context, it means that you can narrate something about yourself in your present state. Then that will be used as 'what to do,' 'what should come next,' all of that. Now, what is this? Before you can determine what to do next, what is this? Then it's just a life full of confusion. Even if you take that to be true, even if you take the holiest words, then the mind will have the ability to propose a 'next.' Can we not admit that we have no idea what this is, this very moment?
Who can tell me what this is? Of course, no. Is this a master sitting in the disciples? Of course, it's not that different. It's not that restricted. It's not that primitive. It's much more to this: the energetic support, the light in the room, the sound of the AC, the horns of the traffic. We can't decipher in this way, but we can meet. If you were told that the best movie that is ever going to be made in the world is coming to PVR at Forum, only one showing is there, only one showing is there, the best director has made it and it's limited edition, okay? Go into that movie, you'll just be. But the funny thing is, under the hypnosis of the mind, we are missing the best movie in the world through its subtitles moment to moment.
The beauty of this is that when you meet it moment to moment, that which is witnessed and that which is witnessing both are fully apparent. It's amazing. It is not that as you open and empty you only recognize what is perceived; even that which is aware of perception is recognized. So, either you do a full Neti Neti and say, 'Not this, not this, not this, not this is not,' or you say, 'Also this, also this, also this, also this is okay.' You do that, you come to the same point. So, this way or that, at the end you meet the same. There's no escaping the truth. It is only escaped in half measures.
So, if you go half this way or anything—'Not the body, not my thought, hey by the way he said full perception, pure perception, I guess I want to feel one with that body but not this mind'—either open and empty here and now, or this, not this. You come to a point where you cannot not say, you cannot say 'not this' too very quickly, unless you're doing some fantasy exercises. And that same discovery is here also. Sometimes you—the Vedantic method is still a method. It's a thought experiment, it's a series of tools. It is not saying that what is being said is the ultimate truth. You need to buy into that provisionally so that you can follow the experiment fully. It is not that at the end you will say, 'Oh, this is unreality and this is reality,' which goes nowhere. The provisional thing: look with outside at that which is beyond perception. And before Vedanta, most of us didn't even realize we had that ability.
Yeah, all this is perception. What is the effort needed to recognize that you are the witnessing principle here and now? Before. Thank you. That is Atma Gyan, self-knowledge. What can you do with it? Nothing at all. What would you want to do with it? Share? Satsang is not as glamorous as it looks. It's not always like people throwing flowers. What else can you do? And that is where truth for truth's sake, here you go. God for God's sake comes. If you could meet God but get nothing in return except the meeting itself, it's worth contemplating. So, would you want to? Or this is the whole Nachiketa and Yamraj conversation. The young boy who insists that he wants that which is beyond death.
So, Yamraj comes and says, 'But I'll give you palaces and give you the best friends and, you know, everything that you can ask for.' Which one of these will escape you? He says to the god of death, 'They don't know all of this is under my reign and it will come to an end. If I'm going to leave it tomorrow, I'll leave it today. I want that which is beyond you, beyond death. Not so that I'll have some siddhi or superpower, okay? It's just because I'm done with the lie. I'm done with that which is in time.' So, is this search for God so that you can live life like a king, or is there a deeper longing? Just cannot be satisfied with noisy temptation offerings.
Is God a means to an end? God will never become so small. Are you looking for God so that you can get the best servant in the world? Just have to bow down, do some drama like that? You want a genie? Are you not a genie? You will rub the lamp, but in your pretend surrender thing, so, 'I bow down to you, but please give me this and this.' One for God's sake, or God for me? Because there's not enough room for both in this universe. You cannot fit both God and me. If this takes a hold in your heart, then your mind will not be able to trip you up. But if you want to juggle God and me, that God that you're trying to juggle, you're the one being juggled. Nobody has that kind of power. What is the sacrifice that's being asked for? What do you hold of value? And again, I'm repeating, well, it is God is not in—
It is known to you, but please give me this and this one. For God's sake, for God, for me, because there's not enough room for both in this universe. You cannot fit both God and me. If this takes a hold in your heart, then your mind will not be able to trip you up. But if you want to juggle God and me, that God that you're trying to juggle, you're the one being juggled. Nobody has that kind of power. What is the sacrifice that's being asked for? What do you hold of value? And again, I'm repeating, God is not in opposition to people. If God was in opposition to any of this, you think it would still be? It's like, if I let go, God may do demolition. You feel like it could be there if God didn't want it already? It's not what I'm saying. I'm saying our attachment cannot be to both me and to God.
And Father, one can say that God is the one putting that attachment on you, and now God is pointing you to drop it. Yeah, this is God's play there. He put it there, now He said leave it. God bought me the video game and I'm playing with it, now God is saying, 'Please keep it down.' Because the child may have that lamentation: 'You need your PlayStation, you bought it for me.' Just like you have to become the Nachiketa to become free. And we don't know, maybe it was the ten-thousandth round which got captured as the Katha Upanishad. Maybe before that, 'I'm right there, I'll give you...' Yeah, okay, nothing much. You're having a better time without that. I can see the inklings of its heart. Just like I see nothing I'm saying is the truth. It's toilet garbage. It's only meant to point you, and it is pointing you well.
So your mind, you had a good time so far. What I'm pointing you to is to your heart, and you have come to such beautiful maturity in your heart. Okay, say the question. Let's say one, I think it's a very important question. Is it seeking salvation and growth, and when we say that we are done with life, somewhere we are trying to escape life because of the challenges of life? We are not really wanting God, we just want to avoid the suffering and the challenges of life. So do we really want to meet God, or we just fly from our challenges? So if we are open to meeting God moment to moment without already having an idea of what to do, what not to do, then we really want God.
You see, if we want just like a cheat code in life because life is causing too much suffering, it's like, 'I have to... I've been told this, if I pray to God...' you see, so then it becomes an escape. So you have to check for ourselves that from whatever we have discovered about ourselves now, do I need to rely on a templatized version of how to live from the head, or am I open to living in the presence of God moment to moment? Because there will be times where I'll trip up. Identification, those moments will come. Okay. But what is my best refuge in those times? To come back in the refuge of God. So if that openness is there, then we are open to this. If that openness is not there, then we want to fly. This flight will not be a comfortable flight. You will be torn apart.
To help us live this life, practice... no, okay. It's a mind like half of a half-cylinder. Help us move. God should be our servant. 'I am running this life, would you please help me?'
How are you running this life? Do you know how to move a finger? You know how to move? How? How did you do it? It happens. I think you did it, or it happened? Someone who was scientifically inclined would say there's some neurons which fire in my brain, and those neurons activate the nerves and the signals and the muscle. Very nice. So do you know how to fire a neuron? Nobody knows, you see. So the notion 'I am running my life'... you don't know how to move a finger, how will you run life? What is life? You don't even know what life is in our heads, you see. Our heads are so tiny, it doesn't even know what life is. The presence of God we call life. The movement of God is called life. 'I am running that.' Whose design is that? 'I am running it. I know this body is running life.'
I'm not picking on you again, it's a second such thing. I'm just like questioning these deeply held beliefs. Okay, like what are we saying? 'This body is running life.' Is this body going to wake up this morning? Who controls that? So this notion that 'I am running life and I only want God to help me, please God'... that's usually, I think mostly it's all right. It's just my relationship giving some trouble, you know, my boss giving something. We don't realize it, my child... we don't realize it, but it's just pure arrogance. But in the world, we have taken that to be humility. 'Ask God for help in the things you can't do.' Such a sweet street. What am I doing wrong? We are asking God to help me in the things I can't do. You don't even exist! You want God to come and serve you in those things you can't do?
Are you starting to see the upside-down nature of all of them? Make-believe, this make-believe fairy tale. And just because these notions are popular doesn't make them true. Ask God in your heart, 'How can I be so in service to You?' And not that whatever we may be able to do will actually help God in some way. To align to God's cause is the best gift that you can give to yourself, not a gift you can give to God. I'm playing Lego. I'm playing Lego blocks and the character suddenly comes out, 'What gift can I give you?' It's madness. So our life to be in service to God is a gift that we can give to ourselves, not a gift that you're giving to God. In fact, God gave it to ourselves to allow us to be in service to Him.
So rather than getting lost in the series of questions that this conversation may have opened out, pick one. Like one question you could pick, for example, is: 'What do I really know? What do I really know?' Or if that seems also too intellectual, too conceptual, you can say: 'Who am I?' Until we get to the bottom of that, the rest is just inside you. In five minutes, we just discovered the absurd notion of asking God for help.