Everything You Put After ‘I Am’ Is a Mask, a Facade - 10th July 2018

Now let's look at one of the mind reports which gets us. When I say meet this moment, meet now, or meet yourself empty of any notion about yourself, your mind will obviously come and say, 'But nothing happened.' And I am saying that the complete truth, the absolute truth, is completely apparent to you in that one moment of your notionless existence. So there is a big contradiction there. I am saying that the absolute truth is completely apparent to you in one moment of notionless existence, and your mind is saying nothing happened. So a big quantum leap you did. So what is true? Is it not clear that you exist and you are aware of your existence? Is isness ever down?

When you are empty of any concept about yourself, you seem to escape your divinity when you buy into this mental idea 'nothing happened.' And it's very easy to come to Advaita satsang and say things like 'I am aware of my existence,' but do you realize what you're talking about? This existence, according to all the sages, according to the Upanishads and the one Sri Ramana Maharshi, said it is this existence which gives light to the sun. But how easily we say, 'I'm aware of my existence.' Whose existence is this? Is this a personal existence? I propose to you that this is the existence of the only Divine Being there is. Everything is just a manifestation of this.

What a difficult job the mind has. What a difficult job it has, and how well it seems to have done it to convince this divinity itself—or at least to have played this game of convincing this divinity itself—that it is personal. Because all of you are aware of your existence; you just believe that a person exists. There's nobody who ever asked, 'Can you stop being? Can you not exist?' and said, 'Yes, I did it.' This being is the Divine. Your being, your very existence, is the existence of consciousness. And it is clear to you in this moment if in this moment you're not picking up a mask about yourself, you're not interpreting yourself as something.

So everything you put after this 'I am,' everything that you put after this 'I am,' is just a mask. It's a facade. Now, which offer will you buy from the mind? 'I am free' is a facade. 'I am still not free' is a facade. 'I am almost there' is a facade. Because it says nothing about the 'I am'; it's just a made-up idea. This 'I am' which is beyond any limits—and hundreds of times we have checked this way—we saw that all these sensations which I call the body do not contain 'I am.' It is 'I am' which is the screen of all these sensations. We check this over and over. If something defines your boundary, don't you have to also see the other side? How can I decide that something is my boundary? Because both sides of the boundary are visible to you, you see.

They are within the screen as present. Your being is present everywhere. Actually, I'm laughing because it is everywhere which is present on your screen, but that's okay. But when we make a boundary and define and say 'this is me,' it is a pure fraud, fooling yourselves to play this game of individuality. So this 'I am' is without limits, without boundaries, and it is clear to you. You are just too addicted to believing the photocopy version of yourself. It says, 'I was born here, then this is where I lived, these are the relationships I had, these are the degrees I got, this is my current life, this is what I want my future to be.' These are nothing but ideas. They have nothing to do with what actually happened or what actually is. So leave your being unharassed by your concepts. That is satsang.

So this sense, this existence, you feel like you could be adding things to it with what you know, what you think. But how will you add something to God? And this 'you' that is doing it, by the way, is also the same God-consciousness. That's why Guruji says this is rehab for God, which is run by God itself. So what can you say after 'I am' which adds something to that 'I am'? What can you believe is true about you?

So yesterday and anytime you go to your being, it can be your fire, certainly. It could be a fire, certainly, where you actually can burn all your stories or surrender them. What story can't you do without? Is it your spiritual one, relationship one, your money one, body one? Which story can't you do without? Find it in your own life. It could be something that you are looking for, something that you're sure has happened to you, some grievance, some resentment, some guilt. And it is these stories which make us feel un-empty of these caches, which is so light. At least as long as you can identify that it is this that gives me trouble. It is not the world, it is not events, it is not even feelings or emotions. There is always a story which gives me trouble.

But the mind will try to distract it. It will say, 'It is because that is happening, this is now, and look at how he's behaving, look at how she said this,' and all of these things. But what is all this? It is a group of atoms and molecules floating around, troubling other pieces of atoms and molecules? No, it can't be. It must be that all that seemed like an attack, all that seemed like a defense, must be just conceptual, just ideas.

Okay, so let's take this story, because many of you struggle with this even after many years of being in satsang. If somebody says something mean to you, somebody says something you don't like—'You are a horrible person, something you're just terrible, I don't know what you are doing in this, and you don't deserve to be here'—suppose what actually happened? Those sound waves carry some daggers in them? What actually happened? Your body is not physically hurt. So what is it that got attacked? And suppose that you were brand new to satsang, you don't even know what is sunrise, and somebody comes and tells you, 'You're just terrible, you don't deserve to be in this.' Someone taught me something wonderful; it doesn't have any effect. So it's not in the content of the words, it is not in the hearing of them. Then what is it in? What is the potential for suffering?

Suppose you told a one-year-old child this; nothing happens. So what makes it different for you? What happened to that one-year-old child and now when this one, the presumed grown-up, hears these words, then it can hurt? What changed? This is the loss of innocence that I speak about. And these are the things you hear them from the world, we hear them from the mind: 'You don't deserve a relationship, you don't deserve to be free, you're not worthy.' And I'm not picking out necessarily just one end of the spectrum. The other end could also be, 'Oh, you're just too good, you're just too good, yeah, like you're just sweet, you're the best person, you'll get the best relationship, you're just this.' This is the nature of the so-called self-enhancement.

Because the negative affirmations are not true, no less than positive affirmations are stories. So what is beyond our stories? Is it because we can keep self-improvement coming up to who? Then we ran to who? And we go to that kind of man and he said, 'Sorry, sorry, I'm already in a relationship,' and then what happens to our good? So all of this is the house of cards. This lies on top of lies. And you can put a coating on it now, the best, the icing on the cake, but if it's just made-up stuff, it will not be durable, you see. You can cover up a house of cards with the best icing, but still it'll crumble.

So negative stories are not helping, so-called positive stories are not helping. Have you tried the middle? This middle is maybe unattractive because the mind can't do it. The mind could say, 'Okay, tell me anything positive, I'll think positive; anything negative, I'll think anything negative.' It never follows that, but at least it pretends to. But this middle is: walk in the middle of true and false, in the middle of right and wrong, in the middle of left and right, in the middle of previous and next. What is there? And it's surprising. Wonder, yes. But in the middle of wonder and disgust, what is there? In the middle of being and not being?

You looked at every concept about yourselves and if you want, you also can Byron Katie it. You can look at it, you will see it's not true. You will turn around and you'll see that the turnaround is as true as my original position. You see, both are fundamentally not true because you will be distorted with that turnaround and you would have led to your turnaround which could have been seen as true before you've seen that all these positions, either on the left or the right, are not true. What does that leave you with? And you're empty of all concepts of the truth, are you?

Byron Katie, if you can look at it, you will see it's not true. You will turn around and you'll see that the turnaround is as true as my original position. You see, both are fundamentally not true because you will be distorted with that turnaround, and you would have led to your, you know, turnaround which could have been seen as true before you've seen that all these positions, either on the left or the right, are not true. What does that leave you with? When you're empty of all concepts of the truths, are you left with the truth or the forms? Again, empty of all concepts of true and false, what are you left with? When you're empty of notions of right and wrong, is this right or wrong?

Somebody filed a beautiful report yesterday. They said, other than this not knowing, there's so much love. And I can see that there's so much peace, there is so much love, there's so much joy in their naturalness. Empty of concepts. Before you lost your innocence, all of this was naturally there. But I don't want to see this too often because you will make a knowing out of it, and then you start saying, 'Where is the love? Where is the joy?' So, better than to meet life naked of any concepts. Meet life naked of any concepts, not even for something, not even for freedom. Because then you can have a wire there saying, 'Why am I doing this? Why am I meeting life without concepts? Oh, so I can get my freedom.' Not even that.

This is the middle that it is not act. Even now, the mind moves. It might be saying, 'Oh, this is it, this is it, this is it.' Complete nakedness. Complete not knowing what this is, because you cannot know it. They said to me these words when I came on the hot seat. He said, 'Then don't know, because knowing messes it up.' And it's not true anyway. Just be. But you don't have to know that. I added this 'have to be' part; he didn't say that part. This part I'm adding: don't know, because knowing messes it up. You should be shocked at that, that knowing messes it up, because it feels like in all our life, what we wanted to do is know what is going on. Like, 'Are you all right? Am I becoming free? What is this?'

I heard the other day that there's a sect of Korean Zen where their practice is you're supposed to sit in front of a blank wall, you see, for many years, just inquire into the question: 'What is this?' It's beautiful in a way. I'm not recommending it to any of you, but I'm just saying, let what is the mind proposing... all the mind's conclusions are the conclusions about what this is. It's an answer to what's going on, but you can't. Therefore, I say that surrender actually is just not picking up any conclusion. Not even 'this is possible'.

Simple. Because what got attacked in the prehistory were just our conclusions about ourselves. The play of attack and defense only happens with these conclusions, these ideas. For a moment, can you imagine yourself, even if you feel like 'I can't do it', where at least you can imagine yourself? Imagine yourself without any story. And I think that you're just so fresh that no grievances, no resentment, no past, no idea about the future, no boundary. Nobody. More spacious than space you are. All true and false, beyond all that. Now imagine you are this. Imagine that that is the real world. Here you are neither doing or not doing. No wanting, no letting go. Empty of all of these qualities, all of these notions. Now in your heart, ask: 'Is this my imagination or my truth?' Could it be that everything that I have believed before this has been imagining, and this motionlessness has shown you the truth?

There was a question to look at before we end today. A few questions. 'Father, there are subtle, almost undetectable silent thoughts which seem to pose as motionlessness and do not follow the expected pattern of coming and going. They seem to stay silent, subtle, undetectable.' Oh, don't worry about them. Maybe it comes like that. The thoughts seem to become so subtle that we can't even tell what they are saying, what's the message. Yeah, it's going to feel undetectable. So it is not for you to... so what you have to do in a sense is not believe any thoughts about these thoughts, because those are detectable. I'll take care of the other one, Father.

But the brain always tries to make concepts so that it can survive better. How to spot that? 'The brain always tries to make concepts so it can...' Let's say 'mind'. We use the term 'mind' because the brain is also probably a concept in the mind. But the mind always tries to make concepts so that it can survive better. Yes. How to spot that? Every concept. Every concept. As I said, everything that we say after 'I am'. No, being is here. This is the holy presence. This is the divine presence which has no limitations, has no wants, has no past, no future. What concept is needed on top of this? So when we say 'survive better', you must be talking about the body, that which had a birth and then it's time to avoid that. But that is not your being. That is not your being. So explore this being itself without any judgment or interpretation or what the conclusion might be. Then next time when you come, we can look again at this, whether we need to see through these concepts and pick out the good one and leave the so-called bad ones, or we come for the whole, left and right, everything. Thank you all so much for being in Satsang today. Satguru Sri Mooji Baba Ki Jai. Guru Sri Ananta Ji Ki Jai. Jai Guru.