Personhood is a Pretense (Ashtavakra Gita 1.4) - 7th October 2016

So the feed said: 'Abide in awareness with no illusion of person.' So right now, yeah, personhood is a pure pretense that 'I exist personally.' It's just an idea. So now, three years now I have had people in Satsang, and I say: 'You show me the person and I give you a thousand dollars.' It is not... I have not lost a thousand dollars yet, and I'm becoming more and more confident. Why? Because sometimes, because we keep hearing these things these days, it is so easily available here. A sage would tell you, 'Come, you stay in my ashram twenty years, sweep the floors, then I will tell you one word like this.' But here every day we hear: 'You're not the person, you're not the person.' I know I'm not the person. Do you realize what it means? You are not a person. What are you then, really?

We are not speaking about some mythical stories, fairy tales. There is no person here. There is the appearance of a body here, but this body doesn't want freedom. This body is not concerned about special relationships, money. Body wants food. Who is this one? One cannot find this one, you see. It's a myth. It's the idea of separation which never really happened. So can we at least make a deal that till you find this person, you will not believe in its existence? Fair enough? No? They look so convinced. It's very scientific. Until we find the existence of this separate entity, at least till then, can we not give it our belief?

What is the trouble? The trouble is that this one has a very good lawyer, you see. The non-existent one in this play, in this Leela of personhood, has a very good lawyer called the mind. It says, 'But, but, but I want this. But, but, but what about this?' What right now it is saying to you, all kinds of things. Who is it representing? You ask it: 'Where is the client?' Why do you need a voice to speak to yourselves? You don't ask these fundamental questions. If it is my voice, then what it is telling me I should already know. Why do I need this voice to speak to myself? If it is known, why do you need this mind saying, 'You want this, I want this, I want freedom, I want peace, I want happiness, I want...'? Who is he talking to?

We picked up the wrong number and someone is speaking to us, and we don't ask who is speaking. Who do you want to speak to? Either question reduces as one of the two. So this is the habit that we are here to look at. In this moment, can we allow this voice to just come and go? Can we not resist anything at all? And with this simple allowing, you will not pick up this illusion of being a person. That's why I say: if you want to see God pretending to be a person, believe your next thought. If you want to see God as God, don't believe your next thought. The trouble of you is that the ego also likes this. 'God, abide in awareness with no illusion of person.' You will be instantly free and at peace. Everything is just so absolutely simple. If you just abide in awareness with no illusion of person, you will be instantly free and at peace then.