An Idea Can Never Find 'This' - 28th March 2019

It's like an idea that has to go out and then prove that it happened to me. So it's... yeah, I can see the whole thing. Yes, an empty of idea. The concept of being empty of an idea. Yeah, am I empty yet? No, still an idea. Still an idea.

Good, good to spot that. The importance of the one who needs to understand this also is an idea in front. Yeah.

Yes, there's a freshness that lasts for one second and then there's an idea of this being this one. Oh, it went. This is... yeah, it's an idea. It's like you say, yeah.

So idea does not represent reality in a way, that is all that we are saying. No idea represents reality, you see? And this mind, which is the seller of these ideas, cannot even catch up with you. So you don't have to escape the mind; it is the mind which is trying to run and keep up with you. I wonder if anyone can see like this. You're here, you see? Now the mind can try and come, but you're here, you see? You're already here. See if the mind can really catch up. Unless you look back at it, it cannot catch up with you. You're just here, here now, this. So the mind seems like just like a memory from the past which you're revisiting because you are here.

Need help with the thought at that moment that seems... I don't know if it's... yeah, as what?

As what? As that which is not definable at all. So whatever answer you can give to the 'as what' will not really satisfy because it does not represent reality. Like you said, it'll be another idea. Even if it is a big idea like awareness, yes, which also is an idea but is a pointer. The idea of 'as what'—it is not a 'what.' It is not objective in that way that we can call it a 'what.' For it to be a 'what,' it had to be a thing. Yes. And that's why sometimes the Masters will say 'nothing,' but even that is not accurate, but at least it takes you away from the thingness of it. But is it deniable that you are here? No, it's not. See, get used to that strangeness a bit, you see? It's like this: get used to the strangeness of yourself because you cannot perceive yourself and yet you cannot deny yourself, you see? If you accept this strangeness—that I am undeniably, you see, and yet I am not perceivable—then it will be much easier. If you continue to try and force yourself to perceive yourselves or to understand yourselves, the struggle will keep going because it is not possible to do it that way.

I'm not an object.

Not an object, exactly. You see? So the 'what' would imply that you are one, you see? The mind will not be satisfied with you not being an object because all that it can fathom is objective, you see? Even if you say non-phenomenal, it is making a relationship with something objective. Complete referencelessness, complete neutrality, the mind cannot grasp.

I noticed there's an intense grasp.

It's okay. See, the speech that just came out now seemed like a person had to actually prove anyway this intense activity of grabbing and objectifying. For somehow the story seemed to imply that yes, I would get hit.

Excellent idea. How there's a seeming activity of trying to let go of this idea or the pull of it.

In fact, what is let go of is everything, in the sense that everything that we think we know—all our definitions, all that must happen or must not happen—our grasping at them, gripping them tightly, is let go of. See? And then that's apparent, what we are saying. For one moment, don't give yourself any shape, size. Don't give anything any shape, size. Nothing. No term. You understand? And can we go as far as saying not even 'I' as a reference? Super innocence. Now, if there is struggle, it will only be to try and fit this into some mental concept. Put God's foot into a baby shoe. Don't struggle. You don't have to understand anything. The seeing that you're coming to is independent of any conceptual understanding for you, see? And in the moments where you do find yourself getting caught up in what the mind is saying, it's okay. See, it's not something to be unworthy about or guilty about or special about. Nothing. It is just what it is. This is what can happen after hearing all of this and recognizing that this is it. Then when the mind comes, we can have two positions about it, you see? If we get caught up in the mind, we can then take two positions about it. Say, 'Oh, I'm so bad, I'm not doing this well. Father had said to remain notionless, all this thing,' you see? Unworthy. Second is, 'Ah, the mind, the mind is so tricky, you know, this is what it can do and look at this.' But let go of both positions. Don't make it into a thing. Don't even say 'I got caught up.' It's gone. Like I said, you are much ahead of the mind ever can be. The mind can never keep up with you. So why revisit? Why look back at it? You want to do a race with the mind and see who wins?

I would know. You would know if you were racing. You would know if you knew that you lost, then you would have looked back. Where are you, man? That's why I keep clicking, then the mind caught up.

It's only when you stop hearing the... maybe there's a mind that is tired of trying to keep up with you. You're here, where's the mind? You're here, where's the mind? You're here, where's the mind? You're here. You have to say, 'Give me a moment, I'll find it.' That is what I mean by looking back. I'll tell you, I'll tell you... ah, here, this is what it's saying. It's not working. Yeah, like this.

Can I expose something? Come close. It's like a very new thought that is happening. Oh yes, like very recent. Just five years I've been hearing this. Old thoughts, new from my perspective. No pressure. From my perspective, because like during satsang outside there is this recognition, right? And but like... I never experienced it before actually. Mind comes up and like even I was reading Robert Adams, 'Silence of the Heart,' very beautiful. And he just like radically, 'There's no world, there's no mind.' And sometimes I do accept that and it's like resonates and it's like, yeah, simple. But on the other days, even now like you're talking and I hear my mind, I have to say my mind is ridiculous, but okay. It's... there is belief in what it says. Like, 'No, it's like it's too radical, it can't be so simple. What do you mean there's no world? What do you mean there's no this?' It just kind of... and it's just like, huh, really? Something reacts like that and it's like, yeah, it's like I thought that it's like too radical, too much. Too radical, too much, can't be that straightforward. Maybe, you know, this is not really it because people couldn't be struggling for years and many, many years trying to get this if it was that simple. You know, this kind of lawyer, the lawyer speaking and saying, 'But it must be more challenging than this. It is self-realization after all, is it? It's not a joke, it's a big word, self-realization, so it can't be just like this.' Then what to do?

I think just the way I feel, just discarded. But something just like really... I believe those thoughts, honestly I do believe it. Yeah, not so much though, but in your own light all of this will get thinner and thinner, you see? So if you need some like another lawyer countering this one, then notice that no one who has come to this discovery said, 'Actually it's really very difficult, it is not as simple as just this.' They might prescribe various ways to let go of the mind. They might talk about trying to control your attention by putting it on your breath, or trying to control your attention by chanting, by trying to control your attention by doing some physical activity and keeping your attention in that, you see? But that's all about if your attention is constantly caught up with the mind. So those methods can be a bit different, but nobody has said that to be the Self or to become the Self is a process, you see? You may say that to recognize you need to have some mastery over your attention or something like that, but here it's a different, more direct approach. So if you follow for a moment, what do you find? Is there that which you find now? Is there something missing in that? So more and more as you see this, then when the mind comes with this thing saying, 'But is that it?' You know, sometimes it can also say, 'But where are the fireworks? Where is the bliss? Where are the byproducts of this?' Very quickly, before we've even given this is-ness a chance, it can start saying, 'I want my stuff, you know? Where's my... I was promised bliss, I was promised experiences.' So give yourself a chance, no? Give yourself a chance because all this will also come. It is in service to you. You elaborate that? It is in service to you. Everything like peace, love, bliss, joy—who are they for? The only one, the one that is all.

Sometimes it can also say, 'But where are the fireworks? Where is the bliss? Where are the byproducts of this?' very quickly, before we've even given this isness a chance. It can start saying, 'I want my stuff. You know, where's my... I was promised bliss, I was promised experiences.' So, so, so give yourself a chance, no? Give yourself a chance because all this will also come. It is in service to you. You elaborate that it is in service to you. Everything like peace, love, bliss, joy—who are they for? The only one, the one that is all there is. They are for that only, you see? So they are not going anywhere. They will chase you. But if you keep posing as if you are unworthy of them, you have to get them, you don't have them—if you keep putting all these preconditions—then it seems like they are also not so interested. You just be you and see. They are in service to your reality. You are not in chasing them or running after them. In your reality, it's an idea about yourself which can do the chasing, but that idea can never find this. And actually, because the mind cannot interpret what this is, it doesn't mean that actually this does not live up to all that is said about the unchanging one, beyond limitations, beyond birth and death. What... okay, let's see. What are the benchmarks that this one has to live up to here? It has to be all-pervasive, omnipotent, all... what else? Constant, unchanging, ever-present.

Father, can I just... as well, like, sometimes it feels to me that if I'm giving the mind the name of 'the mind,' it's giving too much power to it. It's just like it's nothing. Just like, you know, you're talking... now you're having fun, yeah, good. Nothing. Even to use these terms—mind, world, body—this is exactly how you started, actually, is to give it too much reality. It works very strange because, like, I read about the mind, I hear in satsang, and it feels like it gives fuel to that what I hear. But then inside, like, if it's not true, there's no such thing as mind. It's just a strange thing.

There's no such thing as anything. I can accept that. Yeah, that's very good. Now stay in that acceptance and suffer. Is it that? Exactly, exactly. You see, to suffer you need to presume a lot of things. If you accept that all of these are just terms—gibberish, actually, at the end of the day—why do we say it is just a thought? We say it is just a thought because a thought is claiming to be a valid representation of what is real. It is just a thought. We are just saying that it is not a valid representation of even phenomenal existence. I say often that how many thoughts do we need if you were to describe just this room how it is now? You ask for how many thoughts you need to describe completely accurately this room right now. How many will you need? If I give you a zillion, you will not be able to describe this room exactly as it is. But we take one thought that comes—'Oh, this is what is happening to me,' you know the kind of thing—and we take it to be a valid representation. But who is it describing? What is it really telling you? Try, try to describe this room. How many thoughts you need? Huh? I mean, I would need just about every word I ever knew; even that will not suffice. So if our thoughts cannot even accurately describe the small appearance, you see, how will it describe that which is not an appearance? A non-phenomenal reality which is so obvious to us, actually, but never to the mind. It is obvious to all of us, actually, whether we can say it this way or not, that that which witnesses all of this, you see, is not witnessed perceptually, and yet it is clear that it is I that witnesses. Nobody is confused about this, actually, is it? But every mind is confused about it because the moment you start trying to capture that which is not phenomenal with the mental process, it starts to get confused. 'Is this really it? Is it big or small? Is it black or white? What is the quality? Is it changing or unchanging?' You see? All this... you're witnessing phenomena right now, yes? That you that witnesses phenomena, is that a phenomena? Is that witnessed as a phenomenon? Is it? No. And yet you say it is I that witnesses. It is so clear, so simple. Is it a story you're making up, that 'I am witnessing'? Or is it clear to you? It's clear to you, is it? What kind of knowing is this? This is self-knowledge. As simple as this. We can use a Sanskrit term which can make it sound exotic or something: Atma Gyan. This is the Atma Gyan. So, but what is this self-knowledge? As simple as this. So that's why Bhagavan said to come to true self-knowledge, you don't need to do anything else, just stop practicing the false. You don't need to practice the truth; just stop practicing the false. Beautiful.

How do we practice the false?

Yeah, we give an idea of reality—which means believe an idea of reality—to that which is very limited. That is the only practice which has to stop.

So would it be like, Father, the 'I' which is non-phenomenal... I mean, first I must... if I have to say an object, whenever I have a thought, it's automatically that there's someone who has a thought. I mean, can I just show you how simple it is actually? When you say 'I,' what do you mean? Like when you say, 'First I have to...'

Yes, in that itself you... so if you are again practicing the false, which means that you are practicing the 'I' being a limited object, then you have to stop that practice. That's all. I was actually trying to answer the question in this also. I was actually trying... now are you practicing the false or you letting go of it?

Practicing the... no, I'm not.

The attempt is not to make you feel like, 'Oh, you're not doing this right.' I'm just saying that this is how we perpetuate it. Easy. Now, before you make a reference to 'I,' see what is it. We were taught to make a reference to 'I' based on a bundle of sensations, based on some imagination, some ideas, you see. But that was not natural to us. Now you start to notice that if I have to make a reference to this 'I,' why should it be to just some sensations which are appearing within my being, within myself? Is there any good reason for doing that? All sensations, all perceptions are appearing within you. All of you are fairly clear about this by now, I'm sure. So is there any good reason to separate yourself and make a reference to an 'I' which is just limited to those sensations which are all happening within you? Just habit, no? But there's no good... there's no benefit to doing that, except if you call the Leela, Maya, a benefit. See, say body sensations within, within the field of perception... that whose? Yes, the one who is witnessing that, correct. So within, let's say you... I'll say it simply. Within your field of perception, within you, all of these sensations are coming up. Now, is there any benefit to defining yourself just as the sensations and not even the field in which they are coming itself? But when the activity of 'what's happening to me'...

Yeah, is there any benefit to making that conclusion which is limiting you to just the sensations or the perceptions, you see, or at best some ideas, rather than what is so apparent to you—that all of this is in my field of existence? I'm trying to... thought coming up, let's say for example you get a bruise, have a bodily sensation out of that, it hurts a bit or whatever.

Yeah, that's very natural. There's no trouble in that. Yes, understand what the problem... yeah, problem... understand what's the benefit. Yeah, what's the benefit is really... benefit is that's why Guruji says nobody comes to the Self and regrets it. 'Comes to the Self' means what? That you only let go of the false identification. You are always the Self, you see. So there is no... nobody regrets letting go of the false identity. If there was a benefit to the false identity, then you could regret coming to the Self.

Then some confusion comes when you say it's natural to say, 'Ouch, it hurts.' Okay, so then I would be like, in saying that 'I'... I'm just saying, just to feel, do I automatically create like an identity? You know what I'm just saying?

If you stop at 'Ouch, it hurts,' no identity. If you start saying, 'Why does it always happen to me? And when will I be free from this pain?' all this stuff is there. So when we... it's not about saying no, yes, no... correct. But sometimes it feels as if in saying that 'Ouch, it hurts,' there's a subtle... like an...