All That is Changing is Not This - 8th December 2016

Testing question. It says whether the very moment I go for experience, truth is gone. So what does it mean when I am saying direct experience? Is it the same as when I say 'Are you aware now'?

Experience... I see where you are coming from because experience usually is used to describe a phenomenal tasting or something. So that which we are taking now, when we check for the unchanging, it is not really this kind of phenomenal experiencing, but it is a deeper knowing of itself. No, of knowledge is what we are speaking. Nominal testing through experience as is the phenom as a pointer back to the root of that experience, the source of that experience. Who is tasting sweetness? This tasted in my presence, in my being. What is that that is aware of this? So I have to say direct experience is because it is not a conceptual idea, not a mental knowing. It is directly known. Maybe 'knowing' is a better term than 'experiencing'.

So if you are contemplating together, you might be coming to this point where automatically this what is called Neti Neti is happening. 'Not this, not this.' Because he said all that is changing is not it. So therefore, this 'not this' audience. So what is that for which we cannot say 'not this'? What is it for which we cannot say 'not this'?

To use what material thing as an example to say, 'Okay, everything that I experience is not the truth.' Easy. So when we look for this, I say this world is an experience and every experience is constantly changing, clearly untrue. So now, at this, this body is changing—not this. The thoughts are coming and going, changing constantly—not this. Emotions, sensations of pain, changing, not constant—not this. Sense of existence, the sense 'I am', is constant as far as my experience goes, as far as my phenomenal experience goes. Clearly, it seems like... but also it seems like there is never an experience without this backdrop of existence, I am.

There is never another, there is never something outside apparently without first there being this sense that I exist. Therefore, this presence, the sense of existence, is reviewed in all traditions, in all religions. This consciousness, this presence, being, Atma, whatever you call it, is the engine light and backdrop on which this play that we call the waking state happens.