Attention vs Belief (with subtitles)

What is close? The interest and the disinterest? Interest with attention or belief? It's good to really zoom in, because without zooming in, it can seem very broad. So when you say interest, there can be an interest where attention seems to get fixated; we may call that interest. The other time it's like, 'What is this? Oh, five fingers, must be a hand.' That is a different sort of interest—to try and understand conceptually with attention. Okay, so with full attention now, how can we identify? Suppose your attention is fixated on a sensation, maybe we call it a contraction. Fully fixated. Okay, so as soon as it seems to leave... no, no, wait. Attention is on it. There are two routes. Attention is on it. What's next? Either I relax the attention, I have faith in the moment...

Slowly. Who relaxes the attention? Whose attention is it under the command of? It's Grace. Whatever you call it, but it's not a person, is it? So Consciousness releases its hold on that particular perception. Yes. So that may happen. Or suppose it doesn't. Then the alternative: supposing it doesn't, and there is this pursuit. Attention is on it now. How do you pursue identity? What do you mean 'identity goes towards'? That means description, not explanation. A good explanation means that you already figured out what it is. I want you to describe to me what is actually perceived.

Let's come back. There's one route where somehow attention just forms and there's this wanting. There's a want to change.

Okay, let's ignore attention for a moment. 'Wanting'—how is it possible in just looking at it? How is it possible to want? Now, the interest is being filled because the attention is situated on that. Now, produce a wanting. How to do a wanting? Are you saying without the conceptualizing? Don't jump, just follow me. You said that a wanting may happen. Tell me if it's possible. How is it possible? Let's produce a wanting here. How is it desire? How does it come? Your attention is on this, now something else is coming in attention. Perception is possible only with attention. So then what are you saying? Attention is fixated on this. Is it possible without a thought? Desire something now in pure perception without a thought.

There's a preference. What is perceived is an extreme of fuzziness and interest. But that's here already. This was the contraction. Now, preference—how is desire or wanting operating? How is it coming? How can you confirm its presence—the presence of wanting or desire?

Because there's something formless that's witnessing a subtle form? Okay, that's where we are. Then that subtle form hasn't taken on like a full-on conceptual thought. But no, that's where we are. So now what happens next? I'm proposing that without identification with the thought, you cannot say there's a grasping, desiring, or preference. None of that. The mind will rush you. You have to go really slow. I want you to see the mechanics of identity. It will make it obscure to you, whereas it's fully apparent to the Master who's telling you that only with attention mixed with belief does identification happen.

We had a dialogue which kind of felt like something was really struggling. The struggle I took home with me because what you said I knew to be true, and the knowledge I felt in my heart that I was sharing also felt to be very true. I went home and I sat on it. The conversation was about how everything in experience is a thought.

Yes, I remember that. We were looking at pure perception. Unlabeled or uncategorized, without a narrative from the thought, it cannot produce suffering. That is the proposition that I was submitting. Without believing in the thoughts. So first there has to be a thought to believe in, but the perception of perception is independent. I think the challenge is tricky, so let me just get that out of the way. There are two ways in which we define thoughts. One is the energy concepts in our mind which carry those messages for us; that is what we usually in Satsang refer to as a thought. But many also take the entirety of Consciousness to be like a 'big mind.' From that construct, you can see every appearance within Consciousness—they call it thought. Everything phenomenal, everything however subtle, as long as it's 'other.' If it's perceived as other, it's a concept.

I usually rely on the first definition because I noticed the innocence of the realm of perception, empty of thought, empty of the message, the narrative. I don't feel like we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The waking state is here; we don't need to be in opposition to it unless we really attach to it. Sometimes when we say 'forget about this world, it's not real,' that's fine, but I don't want anyone to be opposed to whatever shows up in the waking state because it itself is not troubling us in any way. The trouble is—and this is where the dialogue went—is when you believe. As long as it's a thought, it's innocent, whatever it may be: a sensation, a perception.

And so in that dialogue, you actually took the second definition where everything is a concept in the phenomenal realm. That was a new experience for me because I broke down experience into perception, thinking, and sensation. But it's been a very beautiful unfolding because when you take all the phenomenality and just say everything phenomenal is a concept or a thought, and our relation to it is we stay open or empty, or we believe—it becomes very simple. It doesn't give the mind room to play.

Yes, it's as simple as that. Let me make it even simpler. I was saying that usually I talk about it in the first way because if I say, 'Okay, believe this cup,' you can perceive it. What makes you unable to believe it? That tool of Consciousness—belief—doesn't apply to this perception. What will it believe? You'll say, 'What? Believe this?' But it doesn't have to be a full-on thought. I mean, if you check the first definition, we see that. I'm not going to think, 'Oh, the cup is going to come hit me in the head.' I'll just go into a memory of being smacked in the head, and so there'll be a sensation. But before that, just this itself—can you believe it? You can believe something about it, but can you believe it? Exactly. So the mode of belief only applies to language, only applies to that which I usually call a thought.

We say, 'Ah, this is black.' Whether I believe that this cup is black, yeah, that's easy. But without the mode of thought, can I be interested in that? If there is no belief? We come to interest later. I'm just saying it's in front of you in perception right now anyway. So what can belief be applied to? Attention can be applied to everything—the entire waking state, the entire dream state, whatever realm of phenomena. Attention can be applied to it. But what can belief be applied to? There must be at least one word. Something: good, bad, anything. Nothing, empty—even those are words. There's an 'empty' of even 'empty,' which is beyond nothing, because we can just start believing the words.

So with attention itself, try to grasp it for yourself. You can't do it. And what can be believed? Believe this one? It's an absurd thing to say. I can say, 'Okay, now believe the cup is black.' Then you can say, 'Okay, I'll try to believe.' Or 'Believe the cup is mine.' You can still see that you have the ability to override with conceptual knowledge that which your perception is telling you. If I told you this is just an optical illusion—and because you have credibility with me, hopefully—and I said, 'This is just a white bowl which is appearing as a black cup,' you may say, 'But I don't do this.' But we do this every day! We know, or we think we know, that the Earth is moving or that it is spherical, because we have used conceptual knowledge to override even what perceptions are being interpreted by the mind to be. The perception of the world seems to be flat, and yet we've changed that. So the grasp of belief—can it be applied to something which is not in language?

How does this apply to feelings?

Feelings? Yes, same way as perception. Guruji takes this example very well. He says if you really start to notice the feeling, you will notice that the feeling when you're about to go for a holiday which you're very excited about—you say, 'I'm so happy we're going for this holiday'—versus if you have stage fright and you're going to go on stage. The taste of the feeling may be the same, but our mind labels it as 'you are scared' or 'you are so happy.' So the feeling itself is harmless. The pain or something may come, it may shake the body, but we don't suffer from it. Suffering comes from the baggage, the conditioning, what that label means for us. If in your country you did not have a cat, nobody says 'cat,' it's an empty label. But most of us put all our history, all our baggage, very closely connected with 'I like cats' or 'I dislike cats.' The full story is included as soon as we say 'cat.'

Now let's take the mind's primary objection. The mind's primary objection is: 'Don't label this cup, don't say it's black.' The mind will say, 'But that's just a very stupid way to live, the absence of intelligence.' But is it true? Because if I propose to you that whatever intelligence you need in that moment from that experience is inherent in the perception of that itself, it doesn't need the specification on top. In pure perception, there is the waking state; it is observable, it just hasn't taken a definition yet. But you don't have to make it sound fancy. It is what it is. I'm saying that because we can create a new narrative structure which can become like metallic rules. You need to avoid that. Just return to the innocent, simple mode of expression. We're not trying to say anything at all special. It's just tools to communicate.

So, open and empty. Are you intelligent without the label? What is needed in this moment—is it available to you just in perception, or do you need to have a story? In some ways, it's almost as if we listen to you and we just go home and let it sink in. But the minute you try to listen to anything the second time, you're now caught in the labeling, thinking, perception. How does one deal with that? Do you have to just deal with everything fresh?

That's what I'm saying. I don't have most of this trouble because I know that everything is just moving moment to moment. If any other guidance is needed beyond what perceptions are providing, then my heart will speak. And if it doesn't speak, I know nothing else is required. Labeling is narration or solidification. You say 'man,' 'couch,' 'computer'—all labels are coming. But as what do you recognize a cup? 'Cup' is just a category in language. It's an abstraction because you see a handle, you see a shape, you say it's a cup. But that's only in thought. That's why the Zen master will say, 'There's no table.' Then you say, 'Okay, there are four sticks and a slab of wood.' And he says, 'There are no sticks. What is a stick?' We don't usually do this, but what comes organically?

You're saying that along with perception, the name also comes? That's not my experience.

Go on, don't stop. You're still perceiving. I'm trying to check if my experience is different from yours. I don't feel like organically the label comes. Whatever you're perceiving right now, are you also meeting it with the labels? And what part of it do you label? Will you label everything showing up in your perception? If I don't give you time, the label doesn't come fast enough. What is this? [Holds something up] You saw it. You recognized it. Are you confused about it just in looking at it? No. Typically, I feel like the mind doesn't waste too much energy. Whatever it needs for its story, it labels that. 'I'm feeling a lot of anger.' There could be a hundred other perceptions happening; those are irrelevant to the story, so it doesn't bother with labeling them. Whatever it can insert in the story, it loves to label those things.

I am not giving you any tools to have some spiritual experiences. Everything that I've said hopefully can be applied here and now. You said, 'I don't feel like my problem is a thought, I feel like it's energetic.' But then, based on this conversation, you are obviously labeling that 'energetic' as something here in order for it to bother you. Otherwise, it's just pure perception and there's no issue there. Even if the name isn't really 'it is this, this, and this,' there's some kind of name on it in order for you to have that baggage. We live in this conditioning because of identification with language.

The key point in all of this is that nothing in the world of perception is in opposition to you being free. Nothing in the world of perception is really in the way of your true Self. In pure perception, who you are is apparent to you. It's apparent that you are witnessing all of this. In the same way, it is also apparent that the 'I' which perceives all of this is unperceivable. Your highest truth is already apparent to you. That is the 'I'—finding the 'I' which is not perceivable. Now, the mind will conceptualize everything; you just let it go. Don't get in the way of it trying to conceptualize things. Look at the mechanics of attention and belief, the distinction between them. To recognize that just in open perception—pure perception—you can't suffer. You need to put it in a belief system, in a narrative, for us to extract suffering out of this world.

In pure perception, not only is the fact that you are the witness apparent to you, but in that apparency of self-knowledge, you see that you are unperceivable as the witness. This is the self-realization: the recognition of the unperceivable witnessing of all of this. Because everything that you perceive comes and goes and is unreal. To come to a self-realization, you would have to come to a recognition of that which is unperceivable. The mechanism is not through perception and it is not through understanding concepts. Most in the world don't realize that there is another mechanism of knowledge which is intuitive—the Satguru presence or heart knowledge.