If You Can Hear the Silence, Nothing More Needs to Be Said - 4th December 2017

And as I've been saying the last few days, as you remain empty of any notion about yourself, the non-conceptual truth is completely apparent. What you truly are is clear. There is nobody who is confused then. Then the disciple might say, 'Yes, yes, my mind is too active, it doesn't keep quiet. Please help me.' And the master might say, 'Let the mind do whatever it wants. You just let it come and go.' He might explain the difference between attention and belief and tell you that even if attention is going to these thoughts, you are not yet identified. You can allow thoughts to come and go, just don't give them tea. Again, back to the same silence. It has nothing to do with outer silence. The outer silence is at best a tool in recognizing this inner being, this inner Self.

Then some might say that, 'No, no, even this I can't let them go. The minute this thought comes, I'm just caught and caught, and to not believe my thought seems impossible to me.' The master might ask you, 'Have you had any devotion towards anything in your life?' And if the disciple said, 'Yes, yes, when I was growing up I used to love my mom, when I was growing up I used to love Jesus Christ, or whatever, or even now I'm a great devotee.' And so then the master might say, 'Okay, with all my blessings, with all my heart, I give you the mantra of Ram. Whenever you see that the mind is overactive and you have no control over your belief whatsoever, just a few minutes and dissolve.' Ram mantra, Krishna mantra, Jesus mantra, any whatever you are devoted to. And because the Master's blessing is there, and the names of the Lord itself have so much inherent power in them activated by our own devotion, you will find that with this kind of repetition, it feels that the mind is not so big, not so out of control.

Now some might even say—you see where this is going—some might even say that, 'Even this I have no concentration, Master. I start chanting and then all the emails I have to reply to, all the phone calls I haven't returned, all these things, they come back to me and I can't even chant at all.' So then the master might try a different approach. He might say, 'Can you put your attention to your breath for a few minutes? Just stay with your breath.' So-ham, the flow of the breath. You know by now this even this is not going to stop. So whatever the excuse is, the disciple might say, 'This is also not working.' The master will say, 'Okay, do something physical. Do Hatha Yoga, do hot yoga, Surya Namaskar a hundred times every day, and then do some pranayama exercises.' And you find that the mind will get a bit quiet. 'Oh, I am too lazy, I am not so inclined.' 'Okay, sing some devotional song, sing some bhajan, or just if you can't even do that, have some gratitude in your heart for anything at all. You say to yourselves, I'm thankful to God or Guru or my friend, my wife, my husband, my whatever for this.' I'd say just the next one you meet, you smile with them instead of giving them a big background, just give them a nice smile.

But no matter what approach worked for you or works for you, which of all these paths or any more also you can try, whichever path you have taken, you will only always end up here: with your own Self. It doesn't mean that you'll end up in this satsang; I mean with your own Self. That is all you actually have because it is all that you actually are. You remember that start of that journey? So this is the play of spirituality now, where you want to meet the master, that form of Master appears in front of you. And there are many of each in each of these terms, and even this you cannot hold on to as a concept. And based on how you choose to play next, which doubt, which path you choose to believe about yourself, the master's instruction, the master's pointing will change. The form of the master may change because every expression of the same consciousness expresses itself in a different way.

But ultimately all the true masters are saying the same thing. My God, Jyoti had posted something very beautiful the other day from Swami Ramdas Ji—Papa Ramdas Ji, a great Advaita Bhakta. So Swamiji is saying, 'What is self-realization? It is the giving up the pretension that you are not the Self, that you are a mere body.' People say to me, 'You are God Himself.' I reply, 'You are also He.' 'We are not He,' they rejoin. What else is this but that they simulate for some Leela of their own? What I call the play. They hide behind a mask, the real and divine nature. It sounds so, so, so similar to what we share in satsang because the reality never changes. There's only this pretense, what he calls pretension, that 'I am not the Self, I am the body, I am the mind.'

The master is saying that we are one, we are the same, but the mind will come and say, 'But I still don't have what he had.' This is the nature of the mind. Until we are able to take the Master's words in our heart and just look at what is true. The Master has determined, 'I have no boundary.' If I keep my belief system aside for a minute or two, I actually find seconds of open looking. So we are taking this example of the master saying that you have no boundary. Is it possible to keep our belief system aside for a few moments? The mind will come and say, 'No, you can't find this yet. You're too attached to the body. These sensations are too strong right now.' Can you let all these noises from the mind just come and go and check for yourself? Is it true that I have a boundary? Is it true that I am contained in something? Also, an appearance—will I also come and go? Any of these, just check openly without any expectation, without any concept or judgment.

No means no meaning. Then what Swamiji is saying, 'You are also He,' will completely be apparent. Because he did not say that there is anything really wrong; he just said it's a pretension. What is self-realization? It is giving up the pretension that you are not the Self, that you are a mere body. He did not say that you have to find the Self. Ashtavakra also said to Janaka, 'Knowledge is just dropping of the ignorance, dropping of the false.' Knowledge does not have to emerge; it is already there. The Self is self-illuminating. People say to me, 'You are God Himself,' he says. I reply, 'You are also He.' You think then the 'but' comes: 'But, but, we are not He' or 'I am not He,' they rejoin. What else is this but that they simulate for some Leela? They kind of mask their real and divine nature.

Now, he does not also say that you have to now proclaim that 'I am the Self.' He's become a physician. Dropping of the pretense is not picking up another concept. When we remain empty of all notions, this is our natural state. Our original nature right now is this. Right now you have no pretense. All that is gone. History is gone, seeker is gone, everything is gone. Masks are coming on the conveyor belt of the mind. Some are terrible masks of the unworthy seeker, some are fancy 'proclaim I am Buddha' masks. Let them come and go. If you picked one up, what happened? Nothing. It is not the end of the world, so don't make a big deal about it because it is gone now. No guilt, no unworthiness, no perpetuating the seeker identity based on something from the past.

And I see that we have the best cleanup crew in the world, and all your past, all your guilt, all your conditioning, everything is gone now. No notion now is greater than your existence, your being. If no notion is greater than your being, why do you want to exchange a notion for your being? Should it be your being for the notion? Your being is here effortlessly. Are you going to put it in the box called the concept? The idea comes, 'I have got it' or 'not got it.' I'm just ready for this. I am completely... so this is the position. It is too close for a notion. It has nothing to do with any real you. Are you with me so far? How many are lost? Anything your mind is saying has nothing to do with the real you. It is just a mask salesman. The mask salesman is coming and saying, 'This mask now is worthy of you. This mask now is worthy of you.' When are you ready to remain naked of these masks? Now.

So for ten minutes, let's just keep quiet. This 'Atma' is a term which you are using to remove other terms, but your Atma is independent of the notion 'Atma.' You see? Your being a seeker is dependent on the notion 'I am the seeker, I want to find the truth.' But the truth is independent of the notion. So your Atma, your Self—is it dependent on whether you carry the concept or not? No. So suppose you didn't have the notion, you are still here. Your Atma, your existence, your being is independent of the notion. This is the best test of the false: was it true? If that goes when I dropped the notion of it, it was not true. Then at best it is a term that we use to remove other concepts and then throw it away. Kabir Ji uses the example: the stick used to light the funeral pyre ultimately burns even that stick.

So we feel like there are too many notions that you are still caught up with. But when I'm getting this identity and that identity and they are very strong, and I remember 'I am the Self, I am Atma,' or whatever notion might be, then if it helps to dedicate to wipe away all other notions, now that notion is also gone. So do we need to reiterate it? Not really, unless we are again getting embroiled in the jungle of notions again. I don't know, this 'Atma' is coming, it's like mosquito spray. Mosquitoes around you, you spray it, but once it's done its job, these mosquitoes are powerless now. Then you don't need to spray because Atma is independent of the notion 'I am.' So if you need the mosquito spray, if you feel like it is too strong—the idea 'I am Jyoti' and about my family relationships, my freedom, all these identities are too strong—then if you found something which helps to give the peace from all of that, to get all these bugs away, use it. But even that cannot be something that our truth... finding of the truth will not be a notion.

So for a few minutes now, if my children can... how do you want to play this? You want to play like you did the other day when we said if there is a really strong compelling notion which you feel like you must believe, burn it in the light of your own seeing. Don't hide away from anything at all. Nothing that I have said must give you the idea that I am proposing some sort of a denial. It is a full acceptance. Allow all things to emerge and let your light shine on them completely. No hiding, no running. Whatever the mind might be scaring you with or might be tempting you with, don't worry about it. Let it come with an inviting attitude. You are not doing anything. You, that which you are, is all there is. That which you already are, you don't have to become it, don't have to find it, cannot lose it. Just lose your masks.

Thank you all so much for being in satsang today. Satguru Sri Mooji Baba Ki Jai. Blessings to this beautiful one that is baby. You know, I have that effect on a lot of people, don't worry, very sleepy. She told me, I forget.