Become Concept Free - 27 April 2016
Saar (Essence)
Ananta guides the seeker to move beyond the mind's frustration by shifting from thinking to looking. He emphasizes that we are the ever-present witness of all content, never truly bound by personal identity or conditioning.
Who am I is not a test question; it is only an encouragement to look, not to think.
The witnessing is just the witnessing itself; no person has actually ever existed.
You have the power to pretend by believing thoughts, but in reality you could never be stuck.
intimate
Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.
Illustrating because we used to trying to figure it out with the mind. We used to trying to figure it out with the mind and this is unfathomable for the mind. The mind has no chance here. So when the question come like this, which now seem so easy and natural here, I remember there was a time where same reaction would come: 'But what is this I?' or even 'What is this I am?' It's so frustrating, I just can't find it, I can't figure it out. I know this feeling, and at some level is good because the mind, this one should give up. One that is trying to figure it out should give up. And then it just very simple-looking. I know you say, 'I know that there is an I who doesn't know who I am.' To the mind these words are so complicated. These words are so complicated to the mind, but very simply we just looking. Like you saying, 'I don't know who I am,' but right at the beginning there's an I that you know doesn't know who it is. So we know this I, but it is not known mentally. We cannot make a picture out of it, and that is what becomes frustrating to the mind because the mind wants to give us a good answer, maybe a good diagram to go with the answer so that we can get full marks on this question. 'Who am I?' is not... it is not a test question like that. It is only an encouragement to look, not an encouragement to think. Just an encouragement to look: who is it that is here now? Who am I?
Such a sense of frustration right now.
Yes, with the good thing about the inquiry is that anything coming up can be used in the inquiry. So you say so much frustration is coming. I don't hear that is something bad; actually I say this is an opportunity to check: who witnesses this frustration? Is that also frustrated?
No, that's not.
Yes. So are you that frustration? Are you the witness of it primarily?
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Well, at the moment I am the witness of it, yes.
Now try to not be the witness and become the content. How you do it?
Well, someone's like entering back into that... there's like this sensation, this energy of frustration. There was something like diving back in there.
Okay, do it. Let's see it.
Okay... um, I can't do it now.
You can never do it. It's only an idea that 'I can do it.' The witnessing is just the witnessing itself. It only seems like I've went back into the personal, into the person, but no person has actually ever existed. We are... attention can go to this content, but that to which attention is reporting is not fixated with, is not stuck in it, is not bound by it. It is only the thoughts which will tell you that now you are stuck in this stuff, and you have the power to pretend by believing these thoughts. But in reality you could never be stuck. If we're nowhere for you to go, you are here already as that awareness.
There's distractions that come up like memories and suddenly, yes, instead of me frustrated there's some memories of pop up.
Yes, but you can use even that. Say this distraction is coming up, this memory is coming up: who is witnessing that? Is the witnessing also distracted? This is everything coming up, actually. This world is dual purpose. If the urge is to play as a person, then everything that comes up in the world we can use to take personally and to get deeper in the personal idea, you see? But if the urge is to discover who we are, then everything that is appearing in the world can be to point back at the witnessing of it and to check who is it that sees, and to come to our true realization of the Self, you see? So same world, same content can be there, but depending on the urge it can be used differently.
But the urge is to be free for sure. It's already... no, it's beyond 'I want to be happy' and 'I don't want to suffer anymore.' I mean, I don't want to suffer anymore and I want to be happy, but the stronger urge is I want to be free. I want to... I want to know that I'm free.
But that works. Yes, I know this because you cannot come to... my feeling is that if the urge were just for some superficial of a little happiness, then you would not be here for the second Satsang. After the first, something would get tortured. This idea of person would get so tortured that you will never want to come back to the second Satsang. Yes, so we come... you are here so often, then I know it cannot just be about some superficial sense of happiness. The sense of personhood who wants this sense of being happy... it is pure torture to be in the Satsang because it doesn't like a question 'Who am I?' It doesn't like these... these things with which we are saying, which is that we... you don't exist as a person. You are truly non-phenomenal and all these appearances don't matter, they don't have meaning. It doesn't like... the sense of personhood doesn't like this. So if you can come again for Satsang, that means there must be a primal urge here for some freedom. But this actually doesn't mean that if you are coming for a few Satsangs doesn't mean that you will come to the end of... although that is my blessing, that all of you come to your... the end of your conditioning. But sometimes we cross something like we might have a spiritual experience or an awakening experience or some spiritual experience and something says, 'I want to take ownership of this. This was so good. I have discovered that I am God.' So it wants to use as fresh conditioning and then have to come into these kind of... the experiences. We might get seemingly waylaid from the end of all conditioning because then we start adding new conditioning about ourselves which is specialness, arrogance, pride—this spiritual ego, which is the most common reason people stop coming to Satsang, is because they believe they have become special people now. I would say, I will go as far as to say that more... more seemingly leave Satsang because of specialness than actually leave Satsang because of true contentment and realization of the Self. Well, it can also be that there comes a time where all of these words which seem so blissful and nice then start seeming boring and dull and same-same. The mind can also come with these kind of resistance and see, 'Oh, he just saying the same-same stuff.' So it comes with this kind of resistance also and says, 'Okay, now I feel you've got enough now. Now you just... you can be independent, you don't need this anymore' and...
The Thread Continues
These satsangs touch the same silence.

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