Can We Suffer Without Conditions? - 22nd August 2016

Try not to put any conditions to anything at all. It is the root of all suffering, these conditions. You see, conditioning actually is derived from conditions. And then we put a condition. What are we putting a condition to? It's important to see this because this is actually the end of suffering. See, what are we putting, what can we put conditions to? Contemplate this for a bit. Our conditions can apply to what? Okay, you can see the idea of 'me', yes? And they are put only to those things which are relevant or meaningful to 'me'. So it all ultimately comes back to this 'me', isn't it? Anything is like, 'It should be like this.' Yeah, it is. Ah, you see, 'I am this way. I am only this way. I'm a straight talker.' You see, 'I am like this. I am very honest. You see, I'm a good person. My life should be this way. I want to have a simple life. My family should be this way.' Is it? So all of this is related to this 'me'.

To speak more accurately, we put conditions to our presence. To the presence 'I am', which is uncontaminated, you see? Then we put these pretend conditions which then give us the cause to suffer because nothing ever goes according to our conditions in the long term. It might give you the seeming illusion in the short term that something is working out according to plan. It doesn't work out in that way because ultimately all of these conditions do get dissolved and we come back to pure presence. You see, Atma playing as person is Atma believing being conditioned about itself, you see? And then we hold on to our special ones. 'Everything is okay, but you know, this one or these two, don't touch these.' 'I'm not willing to give up on an easy life.' So He pulls at them. He pulls at them. It pulls, pulls, pulls till we open our hands and we find that as we open our hands, really nothing that we truly needed—because we don't need anything actually—is taken away. Being is just being. Being is not being dependent on anything, you see?

So if you look at all aspects of our life, our attachments, our grievances, our conditions, they are all reliant on this conditioning. But the good news is that although it can seem very vast, there is only one way that we can attach a condition to ourself. What is the way? What is the way to get conditioned? So let us not rush. First, let's see how we get conditioned in the first place. Is it the appearance of objects? Right? Beautiful things, clean or induced things are appearing. Is it possible for there to be conditions? How can there be suffering just because of the appearance of things? Is it possible? We must contemplate. So my feeling is, after we come back from the break, I'm not—I've said this often and also don't laugh at me—I'm not going to spoon-feed as much. I feel like I want to push you a little further into these things. So if you see, don't take my word for it. Is it possible for there to be suffering without...